Overnights:

As expected, ABC's 8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter was the top rated show of the evening with a series high 13.6/21 at 8 p.m. -- five percent above its series premiere on Sept. 17, 2002 (13.0/21). Despite the lead-in support, the series premiere of sitcom I'm With Her fell to second at 8:30 p.m. with a 9.9/14 -- 27 percent below 8 Simple Rules. First at 8:30 p.m. was the second half of CBS's Navy NCIS (10.2/15), which debuted with an overall second place 9.7/15 from 8-9 p.m. Comparatively, Navy NCIS was 15 percent below JAG's season opening overnight performance on Sept. 24, 2002 (11.4/17).

Opposite heavy programming artillery on ABC and CBS, week three of NBC's Whoopi (#3: 7.1/11) and Happy Family (#3: 7.3/11) sunk to series low deliveries. Comparatively, ABC's combination of 8 Simple Rules and I'm With Her bested NBC's Whoopi and Happy Family by an average 63 percent.


Fast Nationals:
8 Simple Rules was #1 for the night at 11.3/19. Closest competitor in the 8pm half hour was Navy CIS at 8.1/13.
In a three way close race, ABC finished third at 8.0/13; CBS was #1 with a 8.5/13, followed by NBC's 8.4/13. FOX, UPN, and The WB were way behind.

Fast Nationals, V18-49:
8 Simple Rules was #1 for the night at 6.8. Closest competitor in the 8pm half hour was Whoopi with only a 2.9!
ABC won the night with a 5.0. NBC was second with a 4.5 and FOX was third at 3.1 CBS was 4th at 2.7.

Great ratings for 8 Simple Rules, this shows how much fans liked John!

Thanks for posting! I was hoping it would get good ratings. It's a good reflection of how much John meant to so many people that people would want to tune in to see his last work.

It's great that the show got such great ratings last night. The show would have good ratings anyway. It'll be sad in two weeks when the last new episode with John Ritter airs. And it'll be sad again when first episode without him airs.

I figured it would do very well! :)

I'm really glad that 8 Simple Rules recieved good ratings. It really shows how many people miss John.

For the week of 9/22/03 through 9/28/03, "8 Simple Rules" came in at #13 in the Nielsen's and #12 in total viewers. It was of course #1 for all of Tuesday.