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Ratings rodeo: NFL, 'Hawaii Five-0,' 'Modern Family,' 'Spartacus: Gods of the Arena'
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Ratings news from across your dial, led off by a very big weekend for the National Football League:- The NFL scored its most-watched conference championship doubleheader since 1982 with Sunday's (Jan. 23) games, which between them averaged 53.4 million viewers. CBS' prime-time coverage of the AFC title game between Pittsburgh and the New York Jets delivered 54.85 million viewers, and FOX's afternoon broadcast of the Green Bay-Chicago NFC championship drew 51.9 million people.
The Jets-Steelers game was the most-watched AFC championship ever, surpassing the 51.6 million who watched the Cincinnati Bengals-San Diego Chargers matchup on Jan. 10, 1982. (It was down a little, however, from FOX's prime-time broadcast of the NFC championship last year, which drew 57.9 million people).
- After the AFC title game, a special episode of "Hawaii Five-0" drew its biggest audience of the season. The episode, which started at 10:13 p.m. ET/7:13 PT, clocked 19.2 million viewers and a 5.6 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic.
By comparison, an episode of "The Mentalist" that aired after the AFC championship in 2009 averaged 16.3 million viewers and a 4.6 rating in the 18-49 demographic. For the season prior to Sunday (DVR use included), "Five-0" is averaging a little over 13 million viewers per episode and a 3.6 in the demo.
- Speaking of "Five-0," it and ABC's "Modern Family" were the big winners in the DVR ratings for the first week of 2011.
"Modern Family's" Jan. 5 episode added 1.7 points to its 18-49 rating with DVR usage, the biggest point gain for any show this season. It went from a 4.8 in the demographic in the same-day numbers to a 6.5 in the live-plus-7 rankings. The show was also No. 2 in terms of viewers added, gaining 3.36 million people to raise its total from 11.85 million to 15.21 million.
The biggest total-viewer gainer for the week of Jan. 3 was "Five-0," which added 3.9 million viewers -- the most ever since Nielsen started tracking live-plus-7 numbers a few seasons ago -- to raise its total from 11 million to 14.9 million. It got the third-biggest boost in adults 18-49, going from 2.9 to 4.1. ("Grey's Anatomy" was second with 1.3 points added.)
- "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena" scored strong ratings in its debut on Starz Friday. The premiere brought in 1.1 million people -- up significantly from the 700,000 who watched the "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" debut last year but down a touch from "Blood and Sand's" finale (1.2 million). A replay at 11 p.m. Friday drew an additional 750,000 viewers.
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The Mentalist and Hawaii Five - O are two of my favorite shows on CBS. Last night's Five - O was huge and I can't wait for the Super Bowl in two weeks.
Wow thats hugeeeeeeee ratings for the NFL
Memo to Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith: you have 54.85 million reasons to get a labor deal done ASAP. It took steroids for MLB to recover from the 1994 player strike and HD for the NHL to gain back the fans it lost in 2005, and the NBA will never return to its 1998 level of popularity. If the NFL goes into lockout mode, some of those 54 million viewers are never coming back, mark my words.
You may be surprised, after reading this article to realize that Hawaii 5-0 gets only 2/3 of what The Mentalist gets week in and week out.
Hawaii 5-0 actually keeps losing its audience (it dipped below the slightly growing The Defenders recently) and it's quite surprising that CBS chose to use its post-NFL slot on a show that is clearly not clicking with audiences.
As for gainers in DVR ratings, weaker shows tend to gain more than stronger shows.
The reason? Stronger shows have audiences eager to see them, while weaker shows can wait.
PR people love to try and convince us of the opposite, but that's just plain not true.
It's just curious to see CBS play that game with its weakest new offering (Hawaii 5-0) when it alone had an OK development season and could use its marketing might promoting shows with bigger commercial potential.
My money is now on a second season of Hawaii 5-0 in spite of its being a complete bust ratings-wise. When the PR department starts mingling DVR+7 and overnight numbers, you know the decision was made to try and force-feed the show to the press as a success.