Syndicated TV Show Ratings for the Week of September 22-28, 2008

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For syndicated shows which air on multiple days, the viewership shown is the average of all telecasts.

Although ESPN does “syndicate” Monday Night Football back to the local markets of the teams playing in the game so it can be viewed by those in the local markets without cable or satellite, the viewer number indicated seems to be for total viewers of Monday Night Football including those who watched on ESPN. We’re not exactly sure why Nielsen reports it this way, but since they are, we are too.

DAD = Disney ABC Domestic Television, SPT= Sony Pictures Television, 2/T=Twentieth Television, ESP = ESPN, CTD = CBS Television Distribution.

Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

Syndicated TV Show Ratings for the Week of September 15-21, 2008

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For syndicated shows which air on multiple days, the viewership shown is the average of all telecasts.

Although ESPN does “syndicate” Monday Night Football back to the local markets of the teams playing in the game so it can be viewed by those in the local markets without cable or satellite, the viewer number indicated seems to be for total viewers of Monday Night Football including those who watched on ESPN. We’re not exactly sure why Nielsen reports it this way, but since they are, we are too.

DAD = Disney ABC Domestic Television, SPT= Sony Pictures Television, 2/T=Twentieth Television, ESP = ESPN, CTD = CBS Television Distribution.

Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

Syndicated TV Show Ratings for the Week of September 8-14, 2008

For syndicated shows which air on multiple days, the viewership shown is the average of all telecasts.

DAD = Disney ABC Domestic Television, SPT= Sony Pictures Television, 2/T=Twentieth Television, ESP = ESPN, CTD = CBS Television Distribution.

Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

Cable TV advertising revenue was up over eight percent in the first half of 2008 versus the first half of last year, and syndicated ad revenue was up more than seven percent according to Nielsen Monitoring-Plus. Total advertising revenue was down by 1.4%, so things look much better than average for cable and syndicated shows, while worse than average for the broadcast nets. In total, cable rose from $11.8 billion, to $12.8 billion for the first six months of 2008.

Here’s a blurb from Nielsen or you can read the whole release with pretty tables (PDF).

New York, September 18, 2008 - Advertising spending for the first half of 2008 declined slightly compared to the same period last year, according to preliminary figures released today by Nielsen Monitor-Plus, the competitive advertising information service of The Nielsen Company.

Overall, despite a continued softening of the economy, several media and companies showed healthy growth in advertising for the first half. Advertising on Cable TV saw the largest growth, with an increase of 8.1% over the first half of 2007, while Spot Radio fared worst among the 19 media categories analyzed by Nielsen, declining by 10.1% compared with the same period last year.

Within specific categories, the Credit Card Services and Direct Response product categories showed the strongest ad spending gains (+18.95% and +20.48%, respectively), while the Automotive (-.01%), Pharmaceutical (-4.76%), and Motion Picture (-4.64%) categories recorded the largest advertising declines.

Syndicated TV Show Ratings for the Week of September 1-7, 2008

For syndicated shows which air on multiple days, the viewership shown is the average of all telecasts.

DAD = Disney ABC Domestic Television, SPT= Sony Pictures Television, 2/T=Twentieth Television, ESP = ESPN, CTD = CBS Television Distribution.

Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

Update 9/16:, Variety is now reporting that while Fox was paid well for the syndication rights to “Mother”, it did not get as much as it was seeking.

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Broadcast prime time advertising can rake in some cash, but there’s still a lot of money in syndication. Variety is reporting that How I Met Your Mother may net upwards of $350 million in its first syndication cycle. Keep in mind, that first cycle runs four years. Also of note is that they promise to deliver 110 half hours in 2010 and there will only be 90 episodes produced by the end of the fourth season (2008-2009) so this pretty much ensures that barring disaster that Mother will be renewed for next season to meet that goal of 110. Plus, CBS can tack on fees if it delivers more episodes so reasonably, in such a sellers market for syndicated comedies we can probably expect at least another two seasons after this year.

From Variety:

One of the most spirited auctions in the past couple of years has turned Twentieth TV’s “How I Met Your Mother” into a potential nonstop revenue machine, whose reruns are poised to harvest upward of $350 million in its first cycle.

At least three station groups — Tribune, Fox and CBS — have ponied up bids in some or all of the first seven cities opened by the distributor: N.Y., L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Houston and Washington. Twentieth could disclose the identity of the winning bidders in the various cities as early as Wednesday.

In cable, the bidders include TBS, Lifetime, ABC Family, FX, Comedy Central and Spike. The cable deal will take longer to close because it encompasses two separate exposures of the series. The first is the standard 12 runs a week that kicks off in fall 2010, when cable will share the plays with TV stations. The second comprises two extra runs each week in advance of fall 2010, a repurposing that’s not available in syndication and that could start on cable before the year is out.

Read the rest on Variety.

For syndicated shows which air on multiple days, the viewership shown is the average of all telecasts.

DAD = Disney ABC Domestic Television, SPT= Sony Pictures Television, 2/T=Twentieth Television, ESP = ESPN, CTD = CBS Television Distribution.

Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

For syndicated shows which air on multiple days, the viewership shown is the average of all telecasts.

DAD = Disney ABC Domestic Television, SPT= Sony Pictures Television, 2/T=Twentieth Television, ESP = ESPN, CTD = CBS Television Distribution.

Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.