Prime-Time Ratings:
Monday 3/16/09

-Total Viewers:
ABC: 17.88 million, Fox: 12.07, CBS: 11.85, NBC: 3.75, CW: 2.26

-Adults 18-49:
ABC: 4.6 rating/12 share, Fox: 4.2/11, CBS: 4.0/11, NBC: 1.3/ 3, CW: 1.1/ 3

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-Yesterday’s Winners:
Dancing With the Stars (ABC), House (Fox), Two and a Half Men (CBS), CSI: Miami (CBS)

-Yesterday’s Losers (Excluding Repeats):
Gossip Girl (CW), One Tree Hill (CW)

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-Ratings Breakdown:
ABC danced its way to a Monday victory, with a first-place finish overall in both total viewers and adults 18-49. Second was Fox, care of House and 24, followed by still potent CBS. Fourth-place NBC, which was in all repeats, may have very well plummeted to its worst performance on a Monday in the history of the network in the traditional (September through May). And fifth-place the CW was finally back with original episodes of Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill, but neither one looked all that strong. On that note…

A two-hour edition of Dancing With the Stars scored a hefty 21.08 million viewers and a 5.3 rating/14 share among adults 18-49 from 8-10 p.m., building by half-hour as follows:

Dancing With the Stars (ABC)
8:00 p.m. – Viewers: 18.43 million (#1), A18-49: 4.3/13 (#2)
8:30 p.m. – Viewers: 21.69 million (#1), A18-49: 5.5/14 (#1)
9:00 p.m. – Viewers: 22.08 million (#1), A18-49: 5.7/14 (#1)
9:30 p.m. – Viewers: 22.11 million (#1), A18-49: 5.7/14 (#1)

Logically, the two contestants with the lowest scores tonight will be Apple guru Steve Wozniak and injured Jackass star Steve-O, who did not dance live last night. In a new twist this season, the two with the lowest scores, when combined with viewer votes from the past two weeks, will be competing in a dance-off tonight for new scores from the judges. But if Steve-O is still injured, what will the producers do?

Dancing With the Stars led into week two of new drama Castle, which finished second (behind CBS’ CSI: Miami) with 11.48 million viewers and a 3.1/ 9 among adults 18-49. One week earlier, it debuted with 10.76 million viewers and a 3.0/ 8 in the demo, according to the final nationals, so this is promising. But retention out of the 9:30 p.m. portion of Dancing With the Stars still lagged at 52 percent in total viewers and 54 percent among adults 18-49, and the show dipped at 10:30 p.m. as follows:

Castle (ABC)
10:00 p.m. – Viewers: 12.63 million; A18-49: 3.4/ 9
10:30 p.m. – Viewers: 10.33 million; A18-49: 2.8/ 8
Percent Change – Viewers: -18, A18-49: -18

Since 4 out of 5 new shows drop in week two, I will give Castle props for the minor increase.

CBS was almost identical to its performance from one week earlier with its combination of The Big Bang Theory (Viewers: #3, 9.76 million; A18-49: #3, 3.7/11), How I Met Your Mother (Viewers: #3, 9.22 million; A18-49: #3, 3.8/10), Two and a Half Men (Viewers: #2, 14.02 million; A18-49: #2, 4.8/12), Rules of Engagement (Viewers: #2, 11.41 million; A18-49: #2, 4.0/10) and the aforementioned CSI: Miami (Viewers: #1, 13.35 million; A18-49: #1, 3.8/10). And Fox was on the map courtesy of House (Viewers: #2, 12.80 million; A18-49: #2, 4.8/14) and 24 (Viewers: #3, 11.34 million; A18-49: #3, 3.7/ 9).

Repeats of NBC’s Chuck (Viewers: #4, 3.93 million; A18-49: #4, 1.3/ 3), Heroes (Viewers: #4, 3.01 million; A18-49: #4, 1.2/ 3) and Medium (Viewers: #3, 4.30 million; A18-49: #3, 1.4/ 4), meanwhile, were an absolute embarrassment. While NBC is no doubt in need of a fourth season of Heroes for its off-network run, maybe it should just cut its losses and cancel it this spring. Never have I personally recalled a former big hit to drop this quickly.

While the CW is, of course, more concerned with the performance among young women watching Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill, the overall performance for each show was well below average. Take a look:

The CW/Monday
8:00 p.m. – Viewers: 2.24 million (#5), A18-49: 1.1/ 3 (#5)
9:00 p.m. – Viewers: 2.27 million (#5), A18-49: 1.2/ 3 (#5)

Both dramas finished fourth in their time period among target women 18-34, with a 2.6/ 7 each in the demo. In other words, it is off to the loser’s listing for both.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data

Perhaps I'll give Castle a shot after all. I just don't want to invest in any more DOA ABC shows....

The Daily Games for February 23 - March 2 are completed. Need Demo numbers for some games (2/24 - Leverage) and (3/2 - Saving Grace) before I can complete them.

Top 5 standings for the 2009 Winter Session are:

• Obveeus - 2474
  
• Douglas - 2170
  
• Zedman2 - 2084
  
• tvfan300 - 2072
  
• lopez - 1880

For complete final 2008 Medal count and winners, [b] visit the PIFC Daily Game Medal Site. There, you will view all-time winners, current medal standings and Daily Game milestones.

Wow! I thought DWTS would drop to around 20 million and less than a 5 in the demo from the highly publicized/Melissa Rycroft-enhanced premiere last week... but these have got to be the best 2nd week results in the history of the show.

I'm also surprised by Castle building from last week. I'm sure some of it had to do with Medium being a repeat... but not the drop I expected.

CW might get a lifeline when Secret Life ends in a couple of weeks

DWtS is a disappointment this season. A very boring season with only half of the cast being interesting. DWtS showed that it has replay value on Saturday Night. 5 million viewers is something that ABC is not accustomed to as of late with their rerun programming.

I'm glad to see Castle ratings stabilize. Its actually performing the best it can against Miami and it helped that Medium was a rerun.

Castle was amazing last night. That's already one of my top 5 episodes for any show this season. Castle is still not better than The Mentalist, nothing can touch Simon Baker or Robin Tunney but is slowly becoming better than Bones. At the end of the day, I also might've wasted my time when I look at the ratings tomorrow and see how low the ratings are for Castle after DWtS. The only good thing for Castle is that Medium was a rerun but the bad thing is that these shows traditionally fall during their second week. Hopefully word of mouth was good enough to sustain a new audience.

Nathan Fillon from One Life to Live is a great star for this show and hometown Canadian product Stana Katic is a great star for this show too.

Like I said before Castle needs to move to 8pm on a night where CBS procedurals are not present. ABC can't let this gem get away from them like they let Life on Mars and Women's Murder Club get away.

Rules of Engagement had one of their funniest episodes of the entire series. Rules was also the funniest CBS comedy tonight for the first time ever in my opinion. Orlando Jones should join one of these sitcoms or get a pilot next season. He's too funny not to have his own show.

Does the numbers get any lower than that for NBC Monday. NBC can't catch a break!

I can't wait to see ABC Family's new comedy Roommates and ABC's Surviving Suburbia.

I can't wait to see how the CW spins these numbers.

Just awful.

Awfully hilarious

I actually enjoyed last nights ep. of Castle. I thought it was better and more fast paced than last weeks. Here's hoping the show sticks, so that we have something to torture pisher with. lol

24 is posting almost the exact same numbers every week. 14 hours in and it looks like those that tuned in this year are saying 'yes.'

I'll take another look at CASTLE if they rerun it to see if it improved on the pilot. I wonder how many MEDIUM viewers were in the aud this week and last, and what their choice ends up being. MIAMI's numbers go up and down almost randomly so its hard to say if any of their people have moved over to CASTLE. But really, how good are these CASTLE numbers? It did beat the metric of not dropping in week 2. But if the numbers stay in this range, where does it go from here? More data needed.

I don't know what was worse folks The CW's numbers or NBC's repeat numbers? OUCH to both! Secret Life for ABC Family probably beat both networks.

quote:

Originally posted by tv avenger:
I actually enjoyed last nights ep. of Castle. I thought it was better and more fast paced than last weeks. Here's hoping the show sticks, so that we have something to torture pisher with. lol

I really did enjoy this week's eppy more than last week. It was a faster pace and that will help the show long term.

The chemistry between the two main characters reminds me of The Mentalist and Bones.

Castle is doing way better than Women's Murder Club in retention and demos so ABC might keep this around.

Nice to see HIMYM bounce back slightly. The episode was deserving in my opinion, one of the best ones they've aired in the past couple of weeks. I think the show will continue to climb back towards the 10 million mark as interest in DWTS begins to wane, as it always does. I can see HIMYM rounding out the year with 10 million viewers and a 4.0 in the demo. I read that 4 more scripts had been ordered for next year, a great sign of a renewal.

With the bunch of C-listers DTWS has it is surprising to me the ratings are so high.

Isn't The CW coming off a very long break? It's to be expected they'd drop. Gossip Girl is in creative trouble which needs fixing STAT.

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce:
24 is posting almost the exact same numbers every week. 14 hours in and it looks like those that tuned in this year are saying 'yes.'

I'll take another look at CASTLE if they rerun it to see if it improved on the pilot. I wonder how many MEDIUM viewers were in the aud this week and last, and what their choice ends up being. MIAMI's numbers go up and down almost randomly so its hard to say if any of their people have moved over to CASTLE. But really, how good are these CASTLE numbers? It did beat the metric of not dropping in week 2. But if the numbers stay in this range, where does it go from here? More data needed.

I believe last night's episode of Castle is being rerun Saturday night at 10pm.

quote:

Originally posted by Jordan Collier:
I can't wait to see how the CW spins these numbers.

Just awful.

Awfully hilarious

I wonder how much an effect the season finale of 'The Secret Life of an American Teenager' had on 'Gossip Girl' last night?

quote:

Originally posted by Zedman2:

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce:
24 is posting almost the exact same numbers every week. 14 hours in and it looks like those that tuned in this year are saying 'yes.'

I'll take another look at CASTLE if they rerun it to see if it improved on the pilot. I wonder how many MEDIUM viewers were in the aud this week and last, and what their choice ends up being. MIAMI's numbers go up and down almost randomly so its hard to say if any of their people have moved over to CASTLE. But really, how good are these CASTLE numbers? It did beat the metric of not dropping in week 2. But if the numbers stay in this range, where does it go from here? More data needed.

I believe last night's episode of Castle is being rerun Saturday night at 10pm.

Thank you, that's where I picked up the premiere.