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TV ratings report: 'Monday Night Football,' 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' DVR boosts
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Lots of ratings tidbits to get to, including ups and downs in the weekly numbers and a strong showing for "Curb Your Enthusiasm." But we'll start with the most recent and biggest thing: ESPN setting an all-time cable record with "Monday Night Football."The massively hyped Minnesota Vikings-Green Bay Packers game Monday night drew 21.84 million viewers, more people than have ever watched a single telecast on cable before. The previous cable record was 18.6 million viewers, also for a "Monday Night Football" game (Philadelphia-Dallas), in September 2008.
The game featured former Packer quarterback Brett Favre, now with the Vikings, playing his former team for the first time. The Vikings won 30-23 to remain undefeated on the season.
- The "Seinfeld" reunion story on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" pushed the show to its biggest audience in several years, scoring 1.6 million viewers on Sunday night.
That's the biggest audience for the show since March 2004 (and further proof of the luxury premium channels like HBO have of not being driven primarily by ratings and ad revenue). A late-night replay of the show brought in an additional million viewers. The larger-than-usual audience for "Curb" also helped out first-year series "Bored to Death," which grabbed its biggest audience so far (1.1 million).
- The weekly ratings for the second week of the season aren't vastly different from those in the first week. "NCIS," "Sunday Night Football," "Dancing with the Stars" and "Grey's Anatomy" all stayed in the top 10 (the top 20 rankings are here).
Among the new shows, "NCIS: Los Angeles" (17.4 million), "The Good Wife" (13.69 million) and "FlashForward" (10.73 million) were the top performers in total viewers, while "The Cleveland Show" (4.4 rating), "NCIS: LA" (4.1) and "Cougar Town" and "Modern Family" (both 3.8) did the best among the newbies in the 18-49 demographic.
Seven-day DVR ratings for the weeks before the official start of the season are also starting to trickle in, and as more than a third of TV households now also have digital recorders, the numbers for some shows are getting a pretty good-sized boost.
Several FOX shows are among that group. Over its first two weeks "Glee" has seen its adults 18-49 rating increase by 21 percent (4.0 vs. 3.3) compared to its live plus same-day ratings. The premieres of "Bones" (3.1 to 3.9) and "Fringe" (3.0 to 3.9) on Sept. 17 both rose by more than 25 percent.
The CW is also touting its DVR gains. The Sept. 15 episodes of "90210" (2.9 million vs. 2.3 million) and "Melrose Place" (2.3 million vs. 1.8 million) both jumped by better than 25 percent, while "The Vampire Diaries" pushed up from 3.8 million to 4.7 million viewers. The network also got a pretty good bump in its core audience of young women.
DVR numbers for the week of Sept. 21 should be available next week.
The open question is still how much the seven-day viewing numbers matter. They're certainly a factor for networks in determining whether shows are gaining traction with an audience, but yet another set of numbers -- the "C3," which shows how many people actually watch commercials within three days of a live broadcast -- is largely what determines ad rates.
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Had to figure Fringe would be one of the most DVR'd considering the time and day they're in. Hopefully Fox takes that into account before they make any rash decisions.
Any info on the Dollhouse dvr ratings?
Monday Night Football was a very good game and my fantasy team win always depends on the Monday night game so I at least watch part of it.
when nfl season is over, NBC won't have any shows in the top 20
Larry David.. Comic Genius!
Dullhouse stank it up in DVR ratings too. It would need to almost triple its audience to be getting a decent number. It's DEAD.
DVR ratings is another way low-rated shows hype themselves.
Essentially, what they do is trying to turn a negative (the show is not all that compelling and people record it and may or may not watch it later in the week) into a positive (our viewers are using digital technology... digital... synergy... buzz. hip...)
Universally it is low rated shows that have a high percentage of later DVD viewing.
As to Fringe, the rash decision was to renew it at all. Fringe was clearly an also-ran last year and moving it away from protected time slots has only made things clearer.
Note also how some show pick overall viewership increases and other demo increases. They're just picking whichever set of number spins the best, and this obscures analysis.
That said, thanks Rick for the additional data. :)
About HBO not being driven by ads or ratings, HBO never had ads, it's a pay-tv channel (although I'll admit that the industry did a great job blurring the distinction).
It is driven indirectly by ratings as it needs to convince people to buy the service.
The Sopranos still got around 10 million viewers for them (and I'm sure drove subscriptions accordingly).
When HBO crows about getting a million viewers for Curb Your Enthusiasm, it shows how low rated that show is, and makes you wonder how many subscriptions it really drives to HBO.
It is important to remember that ratings numbers are what drive advertising dollars to a network. Most people that watch a show later on DVR (myself included) don't watch the commercials. Networks claiming big jumps in DVR viewrship, days after a show airs are not really meaningful to advertisers. The only time viewers are going to watch commercials, which is what pays the network bills for these shows is during the original airing of the show.
Riiiight! Like NO ONE goes to the restroom or switches channels or does something else during the commercials. I;ve fast forwarded commercials on my DVR and sometimes have gone back to see what was interesting. And who is it that cares for merchandising? If Fringe is somewhat popular, won't you see someone buying logos or shirts or whatever of them, doesn't that count for something.