Prime-Time Metered Market Tuesday Ratings: Fox and ABC Neck-and-Neck; CBS Solid
Ratings Box: What’s Hot/What’s Not
National Ratings in Prime-Time: Week of May 12, 2008
On the Air Tonight: Prime-Time Programming Options
TV Tidbits: Notes of Interest
TV Trivia Time: A Smart Gilmore ______________________________________________________________________
Prime-Time Metered Market Tuesday Ratings: Fox and ABC Neck-and-Neck; CBS Solid
Tuesday 5/20/08
HH Rtg/Shr Fox 11.3/17 ABC 11.2/17 CBS 9.3/14 NBC 3.3/ 5 CW 1.6/ 2
----------
-Percent Change From the Year-Ago Evening (Tuesday, May 22, 2007): CBS: + 8, Fox: no change, ABC: - 5, CW: - 6, NBC: -42,
----------
Note: The fast affiliate results for Tuesday will be posted at PIFeedback by 12 p.m. ET. Go to the website, click on Ratings Box (the first category), then Last Night’s Results, and Tuesday, May 20, 2008.
----------
-Yesterday’s Winners:
Dancing With the Stars (ABC), American Idol (Fox), NCIS (CBS)
-Yesterday’s Losers (Excluding Repeats): Most Outrageous Moments (NBC), Reaper (CW)
----------
-Ratings Breakdown:
American Idol-ignited Fox won Tuesday in the metered markets, but its advantage over a night of Dancing With the Stars on ABC was only one-tenth of a rating point. Fox will, of course, win the evening among adults 18-49. Third overall in the overnights was a comfortable CBS, followed distant NBC and the CW.
The final night of competition on Fox’s American Idol stood well above anything else in the 8 p.m. hour, with a hefty 15.3 rating/24 share in the overnights. That led into Hell’s Kitchen, with a third-place 7.2/11 from 9-10 p.m. Retention for Hell’s Kitchen out of the second half-hour of American Idol (16.3/25 at 8:30 p.m.) was just 44 percent. Keep in mind, though, that the competition included Dancing With the Stars and the season-finale of CBS’ NCIS.
As for American Idol, I have been rooting for David Cook all season. But after last night’s performances, it is obvious David Archuletta will win.
ABC opened the evening with a repeat of Dancing With the Stars at a third-place 6.6/10 at 8 p.m. The two-hour season-finale rose to a hefty 13.5/21 from 9-11 p.m., building by half-hour as follows:
Despite the severity of the competition, CBS got plenty of mileage out of the two-hour season-finale of NCIS at 10.3/16 in the overnights from 8-10 p.m., and growth in each half-hour as follows:
NCIS led into the series-finale of Shark at a second-place 7.1/11 at 10 p.m. While the overall performance for Shark was not bad by any means this season, what did the show in was the older skew.
NBC had nothing of note to report last night with its combination of two episodes (original and repeat) of Most Outrageous Moments (#4: avg. 2.6/ 4), and two repeat episodes of Law & Order: SVU (9 p.m.: #4, 3.0/ 5 – 10 p.m. #3, 4.4/ 7).
The CW capped off the evening with a repeat of Reaper (#5: 1.3/ 2), followed by the freshman season-ender at a 1.9/ 3 at 9 p.m. (#5). Look for the return of Reaper in 2008-09 in midseason in place of the expected-to-conclude Smallville.
Source: Nielsen Media Research data
Not sure why Reaper is a loser at 9pm when it grew out of the repeat by 0.6 and likely will show week to week gains. Oh well, I'm sure it will be near 2.4 or 2.5 million viewers which is pretty good. Solid finales for ABC's Dancing, AI, and NCIS.
Yeah, I don't know why Reaper is a loser either. It's done worse, and he's given it props for building on the audience before. Maybe it didn't build as much because it actually had a worthwhile lead-in?
Posts: 249 | Location: High Point, NC | Registered: 21 April 2008
Interesting that it didn't increase at lot after AI was over. There are a lot of people who don't want to watch Idol, let's hope there is some real competition against it next year since it is showing signs of weakness.
Posts: 636 | Location: NYC | Registered: 02 November 2007
Note: Any prior rating results are based on the final nationals. Since the level of DVR penetration has increased from 13 percent at this same point last year to approximately 23 percent at present, the overall results may be negatively impacted.
---------------
-Yesterday’s Winners: Dancing With the Stars (ABC), House (Fox), Two and a Half Men (CBS), CSI: Miami (CBS)
-Honorable Mention: Bones (Fox), Rules of Engagement (CBS)
-Disappointing: The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
-Yesterday’s Losers (Excluding Repeats): American Gladiators (NBC), Dateline (NBC)
----------
-Ratings Breakdown: Led by a night of season finales, CBS won this final Monday of the May 2008 sweeps in both total viewers and adults 18-49. ABC was a close second in total viewers, while Fox was No. 2 among adults 18-49. A distant fourth overall was NBC, followed by the CW.
Dancing With the Stars, which closes the season tonight, opened the evening with a considerable (and, of course, dominant) 18.84 million viewers and a 4.3 rating/12 share among adults 18-49 from 8-9 p.m. Second was the season-finale of Fox’s underrated Bones at 10.15 million viewers and a 3.3/10 in the demo., followed by the season-finales of CBS’ The Big Bang Theory (Viewers: #3, 7.36 million; A18-49: #3, 2.7/ 8) and How I Met Your Mother (Viewers: #3, 7.92 million; A18-49: #3, 3.2/ 9), the first hour of a 90-minute edition of NBC’s American Gladiators (Viewers: #4, 3.71 million; A18-49: #4, 1.5/ 4), and the Gossip Girl season-ender on the CW (Viewers: #5, 2.97 million; A18-49: #5, 1.4/ 4). Comparably, the Gossip Girl finale climbed to its best Monday performance to-date in adults 18-49 (1.4/4), women 18-49(2.0/5-tie) and total viewers). Gossip Girl also scored its best female teen ratings (4.1) since October 10, 2007.
Next season, look for Bones Wednesday at 8 p.m. into returning ‘Til Death and new comedy Do Not Disturb.
Fox moved into the 9-10 p.m. winner’s circle with the season-finale of House at 16.16 million viewers and a 5.7/14 among adults 18-49. Next fall, look for House Tuesday at 8 p.m. into new J.J. Abrams drama Fringe. Next was CBS’ season-ending combination of Two and a Half Men (Viewers: #2, 14.81 million; A18-49: #2, 4.8/12) and Rules of Engagement (Viewers: #2, 12.25 million; A18-49: #2, 4.3/10), followed by the first hour of the expanded season-finale of ABC’s The Bachelorette at 9.69 million viewers (#3) and a 3.1/ 8 among adults 18-49 (#3). Keep in mind that the first five minutes of The Bachelorette included the finale minutes of Dancing With the Stars, so the results are approximate. As for Rules of Engagement, which returns in midseason, the sitcom seems to have found its groove and is worth another look.
Also in the 9 p.m. hour was the final half-hour of NBC’s American Gladiators (Viewers: #4.58 million; A18-49: #4, 1.9/ 5) and the first half-hour of a 90-minute edition of Dateline (Viewers: #4, 4.57 million; A18-49: #4, 1.6/ 4), and the season-finale of the CW’s One Tree Hill at an above-average 3.15 million viewers and a 1.5/ 4 in the demo. Overall, American Gladiators averaged an embarrassing 4.00 million viewers and a 1.6/ 4 among adults 18-49 from 8-9:30 p.m.
Top honors at 10 p.m. fell in CBS’ court, with the season-finale of CSI: Miami at 16.07 million viewers and a 4.4/12 in the demo. Next was the second half of ABC’s The Bachelorette (Viewers: 7.84 million; A18-49: 3.0/ 8), followed by the 10-11 p.m. portion of Dateline at a modest 4.92 million viewers and a 1.8/ 5 among adults 18-49.
Source: Nielsen Media Research data
Posts: 78 | Location: Washington, DC | Registered: 05 May 2008
That's really funny!
