Sal
04-24-2007, 08:36 PM
The following article is from the jam.canoe.ca website and paints a fairly bleak picture for former ratings powerhouse NBC, which last week reached a new low in viewership. Here are the sad details:
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News keeps getting worse for NBC, setting another low-water mark in prime time
By DAVID BAUDER
NEW YORK (AP) - The news keeps getting worse for NBC, which set a low-water mark for prime-time viewership for the second straight week.
One week after NBC averaged 6.8 million viewers - its smallest in-season audience since at least 1987, and probably well before - the network sank to 6.2 million last week, according to Nielsen Media Research. "They are just in a complete mess," said Marc Berman, a television analyst for Media Week Online.
NBC notes that TV viewership in general is lower, with all of the broadcast networks down 10 per cent from last year over the past three weeks, and that the network has been airing several reruns to hoard original series episodes for the May ratings sweeps.
But the network had only three shows among Nielsen's 30 most popular last week - two of them editions of the game show "Deal or No Deal." None of the week's top 16 shows were on NBC.
Aging franchises "Law & Order" and "The Apprentice" aren't helping, Berman said. NBC's Thursday comedy lineup, while critically acclaimed, hasn't broken through to a mass audience with shows such as "The Office" and "30 Rock."
An original episode of "Scrubs" last week drew only 5.6 million viewers, Nielsen said.
"They coasted on Thursdays for over a full decade and they can't do it anymore," Berman said. "What are they going to do now? They're in a lot of trouble."
One bright spot on Monday was the return of "Heroes" from a hiatus with 12 million viewers and first place in its time slot among youthful viewers. Still, the series had been averaging 14.8 million viewers before going on a break.
Fox won the prime-time ratings race, averaging 10.3 million viewers (6.3 rating, 11 share). CBS had 9.6 million (6.3, 11), ABC 9.5 million (6.2, 10), NBC 6.2 million (4.2, 7), the CW 3 million (2.0, 3), My Network TV 810,000 (0.6, 1) and the ion network had 590,000 (0.4, 1).
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision averaged 3.8 million viewers (2.1 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 920,000 viewers (0.5, 1), TeleFutura 530,000 (0.3, 1) and Azteca 150,000 (0.1, 0).
A ratings point represents 1,114,000 households, or one per cent of the estimated 111.4 million TV homes in the U.S. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of April 16-22, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 28.93 million; "American Idol" (Tuesday), Fox, 26.55 million; "House," Fox, 22.41 million; "Grey's Anatomy," ABC, 21.13 million; "Dancing With the Stars" (Monday), ABC, 18.87 million; "Dancing With the Stars Results" (Tuesday), 16.54 million; "Desperate Housewives," ABC, 15.91 million; "CSI: Miami," CBS, 15.36 million; "Survivor: Fiji," CBS, 13.33 million; "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 13.03 million.
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ABC is owned The Walt Disney Co. CBS is a division of CBS Corp. Fox is a unit of News Corp. NBC is owned General Electric Co. Telemundo is owned General Electric. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. The i network is owned ION Media Networks.
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News keeps getting worse for NBC, setting another low-water mark in prime time
By DAVID BAUDER
NEW YORK (AP) - The news keeps getting worse for NBC, which set a low-water mark for prime-time viewership for the second straight week.
One week after NBC averaged 6.8 million viewers - its smallest in-season audience since at least 1987, and probably well before - the network sank to 6.2 million last week, according to Nielsen Media Research. "They are just in a complete mess," said Marc Berman, a television analyst for Media Week Online.
NBC notes that TV viewership in general is lower, with all of the broadcast networks down 10 per cent from last year over the past three weeks, and that the network has been airing several reruns to hoard original series episodes for the May ratings sweeps.
But the network had only three shows among Nielsen's 30 most popular last week - two of them editions of the game show "Deal or No Deal." None of the week's top 16 shows were on NBC.
Aging franchises "Law & Order" and "The Apprentice" aren't helping, Berman said. NBC's Thursday comedy lineup, while critically acclaimed, hasn't broken through to a mass audience with shows such as "The Office" and "30 Rock."
An original episode of "Scrubs" last week drew only 5.6 million viewers, Nielsen said.
"They coasted on Thursdays for over a full decade and they can't do it anymore," Berman said. "What are they going to do now? They're in a lot of trouble."
One bright spot on Monday was the return of "Heroes" from a hiatus with 12 million viewers and first place in its time slot among youthful viewers. Still, the series had been averaging 14.8 million viewers before going on a break.
Fox won the prime-time ratings race, averaging 10.3 million viewers (6.3 rating, 11 share). CBS had 9.6 million (6.3, 11), ABC 9.5 million (6.2, 10), NBC 6.2 million (4.2, 7), the CW 3 million (2.0, 3), My Network TV 810,000 (0.6, 1) and the ion network had 590,000 (0.4, 1).
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision averaged 3.8 million viewers (2.1 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 920,000 viewers (0.5, 1), TeleFutura 530,000 (0.3, 1) and Azteca 150,000 (0.1, 0).
A ratings point represents 1,114,000 households, or one per cent of the estimated 111.4 million TV homes in the U.S. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of April 16-22, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 28.93 million; "American Idol" (Tuesday), Fox, 26.55 million; "House," Fox, 22.41 million; "Grey's Anatomy," ABC, 21.13 million; "Dancing With the Stars" (Monday), ABC, 18.87 million; "Dancing With the Stars Results" (Tuesday), 16.54 million; "Desperate Housewives," ABC, 15.91 million; "CSI: Miami," CBS, 15.36 million; "Survivor: Fiji," CBS, 13.33 million; "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 13.03 million.
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ABC is owned The Walt Disney Co. CBS is a division of CBS Corp. Fox is a unit of News Corp. NBC is owned General Electric Co. Telemundo is owned General Electric. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. The i network is owned ION Media Networks.