NielsenRatings-related stories
Posted Nov 10th 2009 7:33PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Industry, Ratings, Reality-Free
If you're watching television right now, congratulations. You are part of a new world record.
The Nielsen Company announced that
TV viewing for the 2008-09 season reached a new high in average watching time. Now the average American spends four hours and 49 minutes every day in front of the idiot box and the average household spends more than eight hours a day watching television. ("God bless America, land where we loaf, staring down from, our favorite futon, all day and night at the light of HBO")
However, this doesn't mean everyone to celebrating. In fact, the big four networks (five if you count the CW) actually saw a decline in viewers because we have so many other choices now between cable and the Internet. Do you any of you actually watch that much television?
Posted Jun 4th 2009 10:10AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: News, OpEd, Law and Order, Celebrities, Ratings, Reality-Free, Celebreality
If Jay Leno isn't the answer for NBC prime time, perhaps the network should think about booking President Obama. NBC News devoted two hours, on Tuesday and Wednesday night, for
Inside the Obama White House and the
ratings were strong. Better than the insipid
I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here, which acted as a lead-in. Of course the season finale of
Law & Order: SVU on Tuesday didn't hurt the news production.
Having watched the two hours, NBC should sign the president ASAP. There's always the curiosity factor when a viewer is being given access behind the scenes, and that's what
Inside the Obama White House did. It was a look at the real West Wing, which reminded me a lot of the fictional, Aaron Sorkin
West Wing creation, and that was quite cool. President Obama still fascinates me, and
it's well past 100 days.Continue reading NBC scores with Inside the Obama White House
Posted Jan 22nd 2009 2:33PM by Richard Keller
Filed under: News, Industry, Programming, Ratings, Reality-Free
The celebrations may be over in Washington D.C. as President Barack Obama gets to work, but there's probably still some partying over at the networks as the ratings for the Inaugural Day coverage have begun to come in. Things look good for a number of networks as they continued their upward trend of viewership that began during election coverage.
Overall, nearly 38 million of viewers in the U.S. tuned into one of the 17 broadcast and cable networks to watch the inauguration events. While not the 41.8 million that watched Ronald Reagan's inauguration in 1981, it is the most viewers since that time. Breaking it down further, NBC, ABC and CNN led the way with the most viewers between 11:00 am and 2:00 pm. Even further than that, NBC had the most viewers between 11:00 and the end of Obama's speech with a total of 11.5 million. In the world of the Internet, MSNBC was king with a total of 16.4 million unique visitors throughout the day.
Continue reading Now, the most important part of the Inauguration...the ratings
Posted Dec 18th 2008 11:30AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Industry, OpEd, Festivus, Celebrities, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free
Oh,
Festivus, Oh, Festivus, the holiday for TV fans. How exciting that once a year we can close our eyes, click our heels and make our wishes for the magical ways television can be made better in the year to come. Still, there are more than a few changes that I think need to be made to make TV better ... not to say that it's bad. It just that everything can be better.
This is a great opportunity to get a little Scrooge-y and vent about what I want to see corrected/improved/altered in TV in 2009. Is it wrong that I hope the bigwigs at the networks and cable companies are surfing the net and take my grievances to heart? Is it wrong that I still believe they care about what viewers think? Yeah, probably, but here's my wish list anyway:
Continue reading All Allison wants for Festivus
Posted Nov 10th 2008 3:26PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Programming, Chuck, Reality-Free
Here at TV Squad, we often bemoan the quick cancellation of a show that deserves a chance to evolve. We've chronicled the demise of a fan favorite like
Moonlight, and empathized with our readers. There have been times when we've agreed that networks spend so much time and talent developing a show that it seems a down-right shame when the plug is pulled after a half-dozen episodes.
So, knowing all that, we have to acknowledge when a network does something right. NBC is bending over backwards to see to it that
Chuck becomes a ratings hit, to go along with its already established and growing fan base. Creator Josh Schwartz expressed his thanks to NBC for the
post- Super Bowl Chuck episode. The Super Bowl is Sunday, February 1.
"They were doing this big promotion inside of the Super Bowl and handing out 150 million 3-D glasses, so we are the beneficiaries of that. ...
Chuck seemed like the best fit for that type of thing."
Continue reading NBC really, really believes in Chuck - in 3-D
Posted Oct 24th 2008 10:01AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Programming, Reality-Free
CBS has a killer Monday night lineup. The sitcom block from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., followed by the very popular
CSI: Miami consistently delivers in the Nielsens. The only vulnerable, flexible and soft spot is 9:30, after
Two and a Half Men, before Horatio Cane and company.
The network apparently isn't sure that
Worst Week has earned that coveted spot -- even though it's doing well enough in the ratings -- or else they're wondering what they have in
Gary Unmarried.
Next Monday, Gary Unmarried will get a shot at 9:30. The pilot episode of
Gary Unmarried --
which was pretty good -- will be rerun in that cushy timeslot with the idea of getting more people to sample it.
Continue reading Gary Unmarried getting a Monday night tryout
Posted Oct 4th 2008 8:05AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: News, Saturday Night Live, Ratings, Reality-Free
Conventional wisdom says that vice presidents don't matter much when it comes time to vote, that people ultimately make their choice based on who's running for president. However, when it comes to debates, VEEPs are the main event.
The Nielsen numbers are in for last night's debate between Vice Presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin and they're huge --
69.9 million viewers watched the VEEP debate. That's a whopping 17.5 million more viewers than Barack Obama and John McCain drew for their first debate last Friday night.
Why were so many more people tuned in for Biden-Palin? There are a few reasons, starting with the curiosity about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
Continue reading VP debate scores blockbuster ratings
Posted Sep 4th 2008 7:01PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: News, Ratings, Reality-Free
The Republicans have been crying foul about how the media has been unfairly going after vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Right or wrong, all that media attention, plus the curiosity about who this little known Alaska governor is, fueled last night's broadcast of her acceptance speech. The results were predictable.
The Palin speech was a Nielsen ratings hit, drawing 37.2 million viewers. That's nearly as many viewers as Democratic presidential candidate
Barack Obama scored a week ago at his Denver stadium event.
As I said, the big number was hardly a surprise, especially if you are at all media savvy. On the net, the name Sarah Palin has become the top draw on every search engine. She's presently a bigger celebrity -- yes, sorry, but that's the word that fits -- than Paris Hilton, Miley Cyrus, Madonna or Barack Obama. She's on the cover of every supermarket magazine this week, as well as the news magazines.
Continue reading Palin speech nearly equals Obama's -- in ratings
Posted Apr 18th 2008 10:21AM by Brett Love
Filed under: Programming, Web, Ratings, Reality-Free, Gossip Girl
If you're like me, you probably get annoyed when you roll down your window and your beard blows up in your eyes... And if you don't have a ridiculous beard, but are still like me in your appreciation for a good teen drama, this might be relevant to your television scheduling.
It seems the overlords over at the CW have hatched a new plan. The last five episodes of Gossip Girl, set to begin on Monday, will not be available for online streaming. I know. OMG! Right? I'll pause while you text your BFF. Over at the New York Times, Paul McGuire, senior VP of communications for the network, is quoted as saying, "This is an experiment to see if this moves the [Nielsen ratings] needle at all."
Continue reading CW to Gossip Girl fans: No streams for you!
Posted Jan 26th 2007 4:48PM by Liz Finn-Arnold
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, FOX, American Idol, Music and Variety, Ratings, News and Gossip
Once again,
American Idol lived up to its reputation as a juggernaut -- or large, overpowering, destructive force -- by drawing more viewers
during Wednesday's night telecast than all of the other major networks combined. According to recent Nielsen ratings,
American Idol drew 36.9 million viewers total, leaving ABC, CBS, NBC and the CW Network all out in the cold.
Continue reading 'Idol' continues to crush Wednesday night competition
Posted Jan 23rd 2007 12:04PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Sports, CBS, Industry, Programming, Ratings
So, what do you think it is?
Was it the debut episode of this season's American Idol? Was it the season opener of 24? Or maybe the half-season-ender of Lost a few months ago? The season opener of Grey's Anatomy?
Nope. The highest-rated TV show of the season so far was the third episode of Ghost Whisperer! OK, I'm kidding. The actual highest-rated show after the jump.
Continue reading The highest-rated TV show of the season
Posted Oct 25th 2006 11:44AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Industry, Programming, Commercials, Ratings
And you can add other Turner networks to that list too, including TNT and CourtTV.
Nielsen is going to start announcing ratings for commercials, but the above networks
don't want to accept them. But they're not the only ones. NBC Universal (well, it's cable nets like USA, Sci-Fi, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo) is also waiting to see if they'll participate, as is ESPN. Cable networks are afraid too many mistakes will be made with the numbers, so they're waiting to see what happens.
Nielsen has tracked the ratings of TV shows for years, of course, but now with DVRs so popular, they're also going to start tracking who's watching what during commercials. They were supposed to start on Nov. 18 but it will now start in December.
Posted May 16th 2006 9:35AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Reality Shows, NBC, CBS, Industry, Programming, Music and Variety
The first hour of the
two hour season finale on Sunday beat everyone, including the series finale of
The West Wing. Even so, the ratings for the last
West Wing episode ever were actually the highest of the year for the show.
But back to
Survivor. The ratings for this finale were actually down from the last two seasons (Palau and Guatemala), and
the L.A. Times thinks that this might mean that CBS will cut the number of seasons the show has in a year when it announces its fall schedule this Wednesday.
This was bound to happen. The show has two different seasons every single year, and it was inevitable that the ratings would get lower and lower as the seasons go by. I'm waiting for the same thing to happen to
American Idol.
Maybe we need a change for the show. How about something in a cold climate for a change? Maybe
Survivor: Canada, or
Survivor: Ice Station Zebra? For reward challenges you get parkas and gloves and hot chocolate! Maybe you can get exiled to a hot tub!
Posted Dec 21st 2005 9:40AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Industry, Programming
CSI (CBS)- NCIS (CBS)
- CSI: NY (CBS)
- Without A Trace (CBS)
- Criminal Minds (CBS)
- Cold Case (CBS)
- House (CBS)
- Two and a Half Men (CBS)
- The Christmas Blessing (CBS)
- CSI: Miami (CBS)
- Monday Night
Football (ABC)
- 60 Minutes (CBS)
- The Apprentice (NBC)
- Numb3rs (CBS)
- NFL Post-Game (FOX)
- The Amazing Race (CBS)
- Close To Home (CBS)
- NFL Monday Showcase (ABC)
- Law and Order:
SVU (NBC)
- Ghost Whisperer (CBS)
Posted Sep 1st 2005 8:30AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Industry, Programming
CSI (CBS)- 60 Minutes (CBS)
- Two and a Half Men - Monday, 9:30 (CBS)
- Cold Case (CBS)
- CSI: Miami (CBS)
- Without a Trace (CBS)
- Two and a Half Men - Monday, 9:00 (CBS)
- NFL Preseason Football: Dallas vs. Seattle (ABC)
- Stone Cold (CBS)
- NCIS (CBS)
- Law and Order (NBC)
- Law and Order: SVU (NBC)
- So You Think You Can Dance (FOX)
- Preseason Showcase (ABC)
- House (FOX)
- Law and Order: CI (NBC)
- Big Brother 6 - Tuesday (CBS)
- Everybody Loves Raymond (CBS)
- Crossing Jordan (NBC)
- Law and Order - Wednesday (NBC)
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