TV ratings: NFL squeezes out Sunday win over AMAs

Bravo!!! Rena, you should be a TV Critic/Writer if you aren't one already.

NBC is stupid, I definitely agree on every point. W&G stopped being funny after Season 2 when it became a hit on Tuesdays. NBC has always KILLED a lot potentially decent sitcoms (i.e.: Caroline, John Larroquette Show, 3rd Rock) by moving them around too much

L&O has already found an audience on Fridays, when they had their 2 hour special 500,000th (i kid) show the 2nd hour beat CBS' MEDIUM and demolished UGLY BETTY, yet they didnt switch it around with DATELINE.

Oh well, I always wanted NBC to go to the bottom, they were so cocky through the 90's with their crappy sitcom in between Friends & Seinfeld (Susan, Fired Up, etc...)

An analysis on why Glee was renewed. Glee has the highest percentage of upscale viewers (18-to-49 viewers in $100,000-plus homes) among shows in broadcast primetime among the top 4 networks. Community and Parks and Recreation are marginally rated shows that may have enhanced future prospects because of their upscale viewership.

The ratings in the first list below are the average percentage of adults 18-49 in homes with household incomes over $100,000 viewing each show. In general, the top shows with upscale viewers tend to be the same as the top shows with all 18-49 viewers. However, the second list, which has the shows with the relatively highest Index of upscale viewers, has a few interesting members that aren’t typically in the top 25 shows for adults 18-49 (Glee, 30 Rock, 60 Minutes, Community, Brothers & Sisters, Parks & Recreation).

While we don’t see enough information like this on an ongoing basis to use it in our prediction of likely show futures, I think it’s quite reasonable to expect that having a relatively upscale viewership enhances the future prospects of marginally rated shows like Community and Parks and Recreation.

"America's Funniest Home Videos" (2.0/5 in 18-49, 6.5 million viewers overall), it marked its best Sunday of the season. Its was too funny last night.

@jesse, the post you responded to is really the work of Alan69. The person who, for some odd reason, keeps copying and pasting old posts (with the implicitly active encouragement of zap2it through their lack of supervision of what could be a great board) re-posted it.

I could not help but notice how all the sitcoms you mentioned were from ten years ago or more. This was an era that I like to call BJZ (or Before Jeff Zucker) where NBC was a hotbed of creativity (or at least of high ratings!)

Their years of squandering the launching pad of their Must-See Thursdays have come back to haunt them.

As to the post (sadly forging my name :( ) saying that 18-49 is really important because it forecasts rich people 18-49 and those are the only ones that really count, it is of course completely false.

As we have shown repeatedly in the past, there is no correlation between the 18-49 ratings and the amount of money brought in by advertising.

Last year, NBC was 4% below ABC and 12% below CBS in 18-49, but collected 33% less than CBS and 17% less than ABC in ad revenue (numbers that were more in line with overall ratings).

Somehow, the false idea that 18-49 is king has been repeated for so long unexamined that people think it true without needing proof (and sadly this empty belief seems to also permeate some of the networks even though the ad buying data is there for them to peruse freely).

Will & Grace stopped being as funny when they started taking themselves too seriously and bringing on way, way too many "special guest stars." The charm that made W&G such an amazing show in its first two seasons took a back seat to focusing too much on minor characters (who, while funny, were not the main characters) and bringing in celebrity guest stars that would clutter up the works, then leave. 30 Rock has suffered from the same problem, although they've toned that down somewhat this season. Until NBC brings back comedies that everyone can enjoy, rather than just focusing on a tiny part of the viewing audience, they'll remain mired in the ratings basement.

As for the American Music Awards, I repeat what I've said about previous awards shows...give the damn things their own cable channel and stop taking up hours during prime time for masturbatory back-slapping. Or better yet, how about changing the name to American Dancing Awards, since there seems to be more of that than actual singing.

As for the claims of lip-synching, I've been watching music award shows since the 80s, and they did it back then, too. I get most of it, especially while doing dance moves, but at least most singers are honest about it. For those who still don't like it, try this: go to your local gym, get on a treadmill and try to hold a conversation with the person next to you without sounding like you're hiccuping every other word.

@Aaron R, LOL... I agree :)

With the funny combo ratings (Amazing Race & Cold Case, Cold Case & Three Rivers), is it correct to assume that the Cold Case (10pm to 9pm) Three Rivers time swap gave Cold Case a ratings spike?

Here is an interesting fact I came up on:

Based on Nielsen’s Live + 7 Day information for the week of November 2, 2009, which included the first round of data for freshman “V,” ABC’s series were once again the most popularly recorded and played back. The week included competition from Fox’s 2009 World Series games on Monday and Wednesday nights.

ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” was once again TV’s most-played-back show, while newcomer “V” and “FlashForward” were the Top 2 freshman series gainers in Total Viewers and Adults 18-49. In fact the numbers for the “V” debut jumped by +2.4 million viewers and by +1.0 Adult 18-49 rating point, finishing with an average audience of 16.7 million viewers and a 6.2 Adult 18-49 rating in the finalized DVR playback averages.

ABC claimed 5 of the Top 8 biggest overall gainers in Total Viewers: “Grey’s Anatomy” – No. 1 (+3.1 million), “V” – No. 3 (+2.4 million – biggest freshman gainer), “Private Practice” – No. 5 (+2.0 million), “FlashForward” – No. 6 (+2.0 million – 2nd-biggest freshman gainer) and “Castle” – No. 8 (+1.9 million).
Among Adults 18-49, ABC aired 7 of the Top 15 TV series with the biggest rating increases: “Grey’s Anatomy” – No. 1 (+1.6 rating points/+31%), “Private Practice” – No. 4 (+1.0 rating/+29%), “V” – No. 5 (+1.0 rating/+19%), “FlashForward” – tied for No. 6 (+0.9 rating/+35%), “Desperate Housewives” – tied for No. 6 (+0.9 rating/+21%), “Modern Family” – No. 11 (+0.8 rating/+23%) and “Castle” – No. 14 (+0.7 rating/+29%).

As I am reviewing the ratings, I noticed that Adam Lambert's racy dance routine, J. Lo falling on her tush ... ABC's telecast of the American Music Awards enjoyed a dash of MTV-style morning-after buzz by generating several talked-about moments.

The Awards drew 14.2 million viewers and a 5.5 preliminary adults 18-49 rating. That's the largest overall audience for the show since 2002 and its biggest rating since 2004. The AMAs stand as the third-highest-rated awards show of the year, behind only the Oscars and the Grammys and have posted gains the last several years.

Yet NBC's coverage of the Philadelphia Eagles at Chicago Bears game nonetheless won the night, with "Sunday Night Football" (15.1 million, 5.6) helping put the network into first place in these early numbers.

Meanwhile the Great CBS Drama Switch of '09 generated muddy initial returns due to the network's ever-present fall football overrun and increased competition.

My expectation was that "Cold Case" and "Three Rivers" swapping time periods this week would help "Case" and not "Rivers." If the current numbers hold up, that was only half right -- "Case" (9.2 million, 2.0) was down a tenth from last week's 10 p.m. airing. "Rivers" (7.7 million, 1.6) matched its series low, but there's only a half-hour of data included here. If there's a lesson to draw from these results, it's not going to be from comparing the shows to last week anyway, but from comparing them to each other ("Case" is appearing to be the more durable of the duo). CBS also had "60 Minutes" (15.7 million, 3.4) and "Amazing Race" (11.8 million, 3.5)

Amid all the stronger-than-usual competition, Fox's animated lineup was lower than typical: "Simpsons" (7 million, 3.3), "Cleveland" (6.5 million, 3.3), "Family Guy" (7.4 million, 3.8) and "American Dad" (5.5 million, 2.8).

Adam Lambert is a sick human being.