DISQUS

I think there's a good chance Letterman will beat Conan before Ferguson even gets the chair.

"Dancing With The Stars Shows Off to 18.4 Million"

Those pesky sub-heads.

From Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette (well, it's what I found first):

"More homes were tuned in to Monday night’s Home Run Derby than have ever watched the event. The contest on ESPN was seen by nearly 6.2 million households, breaking the record of more than 5.7 million set in 1999, the network said Tuesday.

The 6.4 rating was up 25 percent from last year’s 5.1. It was the most-viewed non-NFL program on ESPN since the Florida State-Miami football game Sept. 5, 2006."

The real problem with daily ratings is the networks have become so insignificant that they no longer represent America's viewing habits.

Cramer going to prime time on the peacock, Sunday. Curious how he wll translate to the "show". Hope he hosts SNL next year. Wonder if he can attract the Nascarites as well as the investors.

And now Wheel is going to add a chance at a million bucks next season. The juggernaut continues!

To be fair, you might want to retitle your weekly "daytime ratings" as soap ratings since they do not include The Price Is Right, The View or hours 3 and 4 of Today.

Bill, I respectfully disagree about Celebrity Circus. A tie for this first-run vs. the other nets' repeats is a very costly sister-kiss. Office or L&O reruns might have garnered similar numbers with much less outlay.

The Olympic trials sure don't look strong. I wonder how this will factor into a heavily tape-delayed games in China.

Also consider that NBC is pushing out Leno for Conan for the Tonight Show next year. Looking at the ratings, you have to wonder if NBC is making another bonehead play.

Cramer moving up on the news stations at 6! Boo-Yaaaa!

CBS does so well in prime time and has had the top news magazine show in 60 minutes for decades now. Yet the morning and evening news shows are so far below the competition it makes me wonder why they just don't try something new. The first thing I would try is moving Katie Couric back to the mornings and try something new in the evening, maybe partnering with CNN or taking one of the 60 Minutes anchors (Steve Kroft? Bob Simon?) and putting them on in the evening.

Some Boston numbers from a local station

http://wbztv.com/local/nba.finals.ratings.2.751...

"BOSTON (WBZ) ― Hundreds of thousands of fans watched Tuesday night's Celtics win on TV, but the ratings don't match the tune-in for the most recent Patriots Super Bowl appearance or the Red Sox World Series win.

During the height of Game 6 -- about 11 p.m. -- 1,343,900 people were watching the Celtics and Lakers.

Compare that to Super Bowl XLII, when the Patriots suffered a hear-breaking loss against the Giants. The largest audience during that game was 3,017,100.

And as for the Red Sox, Game 4 against the Rockies in October netted 2,111,150 viewers at its height.

But despite the ratings, a win is a win, and now the Celtics are World Champions!

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)"

Bill, Thanks for all the numbers you put up. However, "Price" and "View" are network shows, not syndicated. Furthermore, do the "Today" numbers for the morning news programs include all four hours or just the first two?

Due to the source, I'm guessing this only counts soaps and not other daytime shows (e.g., The View or The Price Is Right). Do you have The Price Is Right numbes?

Although in pure numbers, NASCAR squeaked by with a win, considering that Indy was a day time start (10 am on the West Coast) and NASCAR was prime time, the numbers for Indy were more impressive.

I appreciate all the numbers you guys give out. I just eat them up.

I know that daytime numbers are among the hardest to get. Do you have more than the top 5 shows and more than just the women's demo?

Also do you have the late-night ratings you could post?

Always great work here. Thanks!

That CW figure is shocking to me in comparison to the other nets. Who exactly are the advertisers buying with them that would be worth so much?

I figured that FOX was low due to the fewer programming hours each week, but the CW figure makes me doubt that too.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I want to add that Boston may have tuned out in droves to watch the Red Sox win when the Celtics were being blown out. That would hurt a big average in Boston.

Your commentary says TPIR and Deal had 7.59 Million. Your chart says TPIR had 370,000 more viewers. Looks more like a TPIR edge to me.

Isn't CW "on the bubble" right now?

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/31/news/companies/... says:

"The network has a lock on the wealthiest audience in television. The typical CNBC viewer has a net worth of $2.7 million, with an average income of $156,000, according to Monroe Mendelsohn Research. Measuring only viewers watching from home, Nielsen puts the CNBC viewer's income at $73,000, compared with an average cable viewer's income of $48,000."

Yowza

Bill

I agree with what you say with the additional thought that demos are even more specific when it comes to CNBC due to its content. A majority of the viewers have high incomes and advertisers will no doubt pay more to reach this very specific audience.

I'm not sure Friday is the best measurement for CNBC as well since the market is closed for the weekend when the prime time shows run. I would think it might perform better earlier in the week.

Now as a hypothesis to the other news networks. I would suggest that "conservative" viewers would be highly likely to watch FNC with more "liberal" viewers might be split between CNN and MSNBC. No proof to that, just a thought.

Do you have Fox Business Channel numbers? Are there any?

Great numbers. Do you have 9:00 as well for comparison? I see that the overall prime time ratings chart had CNN above MSNBC. (http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/05/01/cable-news...)

If the numbers above are correct, there must be a huge difference later in the evening.

Robert,

Well you could show those numbers then ;)

Less snarkily, how does Nielsen measure video games on HUT/PUT? Do the meters note if TVs are on? Do they distinguish TVs on to those tuned into a broadcast, cable or satellite signal?

Robert

Let's be fair, fewer people were watching "network" television. I was watching Red Sox/Blue Jays on NESN in New England, then some NBA on TNT.

"Scrubs" used to be must-view TV for me and I have the DVD sets of seasons 1-5 and I'll still watch it if nothing better is on. This is one time I have to go along with NBC though and try to dump some older shows to bring in something that might last 4 or 5 years instead of 1 or 2.

Thursday night is the one shot NBC seems to have to keep the demo rating and dumping Scrubs and ER could give newer shows a fighting chance.