Image Credit: CNN
Nearly 42 million people watched the last hour of Friday’s manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspect on television.
The Nielsen company said that was the number of people watching ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel or MSNBC during the hour that ended at 9 p.m. on the East Coast. That’s when police announced that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-KHAR’tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) had been taken into custody after hiding in a boat. READ FULL STORY »
The third season premiere of a basic cable zombie drama just delivered a bigger rating in the adult demo than any entertainment series this fall — including all broadcast shows.
Sunday night’s third season premiere of The Walking Dead delivered a huge 10.9 million viewers for its first telecast. But what’s really impressive is the show’s adults 18-49 demo rating of a 5.8.
That’s stunning.
The closest broadcast entertainment programs has gotten this fall to that number is ABC’s Modern Family season premiere that pulled a 5.5 (all these are apples-to-apples next-day ratings, not including DVR). Football has delivered bigger numbers, but that’s sports and we’re talking entertainment programming. And AMC accomplished this rating with an extra disadvantage — not having one of its major distributors, Dish Network, on board due to its carriage contract dispute (imagine how many more viewers the episode might have had with Dish). And of course that’s aside from AMC’s other major disadvantage of being a cable network that’s only in a fraction of U.S. households compared to the Big Four broadcasters. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Patrick Semansky/AP Photo
Mitt Romney has always had to work hard to prove himself to the heart of the Republican Party, but more than 25.2 million people tuned in to the major networks and cable news stations to witness his well-received acceptance speech, making his the most watched hour of the convention, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Enthusiasm — at least from a television perspective — continued to lag behind 2008, when John McCain and Sarah Palin were on the Republican ticket. McCain spoke to almost 39 million television viewers when he accepted his party’s nomination four years ago. This isn’t the 2008 election, which was unusual and highly contentious, in part because it was the first election that did not feature an incumbent or sitting vice-president in 40 years and in part because it featured two trailblazing candidates: Palin and Barack Obama. It will be interesting to see how the softer ratings impact the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. next week.
In the race for ratings, Fox News was again the big winner, drawing 9.1 million viewers during the 10 o’clock window that featured special guest Clint Eastwood, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and Romney. In a distant second, ABC received a huge boost, with 55 percent more viewers — 4.4 million — tuning in compared to Wednesday night’s audience, when Rep. Paul Ryan made his speech. Their gains seemed to be at the cost of NBC, which surprisingly saw its viewership sag from Wednesday night.
Click below for the complete figures: READ FULL STORY »
The second part of Oprah Winfrey’s interview with the Kardashian family delivered even bigger ratings than the first. Sunday’s Oprah’s Next Chapter scored 1.2 million viewers, up 9 percent from last week.
Oprah has been getting better ratings lately with her network, posting two consecutive quarters of ratings growth, the most recent second quarter up 11 percent to average 283,000 prime-time viewers. Oprah’s Next Chapter has been booking popular figures such as the Kardashians, Joel Osteen, Whitney Houston’s family, 50 Cent and, in August, Rihanna. The host recently admitted she’s booking guests that will spur ratings, though Kim Kardashian wasn’t nearly so honest. The reality star claimed to Oprah that on her E! show, “We don’t do anything for ratings.” Uh huh…
Read more:
Kim Kardashian opens up to Oprah about Kanye West — VIDEO
We’ve been hard at work on EW’s big Summer TV Preview issue that’s on stands this week and have admittedly been slipping on covering the morning broadcast ratings. We can’t let Gordon Ramsay off the hook that easily!
Here’s what you may have missed this week:
– America’s Got Talent (12.2 million, 3.4 adults 18-49 rating): NBC’s nutty talent show continues to lead the pack in the ratings. While Monday’s episode was up 14 percent from Memorial Day weekend, Tuesday’s hour slipped 8 percent.
– MasterChef (4.8 million, 2.1): Can anybody try out for this show without first taking the stage like a cocky cartoon character and then meekly bursting into tears at the prospect of not getting an apron? Which isn’t to say the dramatics are not effective. The third season of the cooking competition returned Monday, rising an impressive 28 percent from last summer’s premiere. Tuesday’s second episode fell 16 percent from its debut, but was still up 11 percent from last year’s Night 2. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Kevin Lynch/The History Channel
Perhaps viewers were feeling the nostalgia on Memorial Day, or perhaps the onslaught of repeats and marathons created a hunger for original programming. Maybe the temptation of Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton’s bedraggled beards was too great. Whatever it was, the Monday kick-off to History’s Hatfields & McCoys was impressive. The miniseries was watched by 13.9 million viewers total, making it the No. 1 non-sports telecast in ad-supported cable television history.
As part of those ratings, the first night of the three-night event picked up 5.8 million viewers in the 25-54 demographic, and 4.8 million in the 18-49 range. In total, the debut airing and the same-night encore was seen by more than 17 million people. Said Nancy Dubuc, the network’s president and general manager, “With all the success we have had at History, we felt strongly for some time that we should own historical drama, and in true History fashion, we have done it, with — pardon the pun — guns ablazin’!”
Read more:
Ken Tucker’s ‘Hatfields & McCoys’ review
‘Hatfields & McCoys’: 5 things to expect from History’s miniseries
‘Hatfields & McCoys’ miniseries: See the Kevin Costner-Bill Paxton brawl! — EXCLUSIVE VIDEO
Nobody was certain who would win Fox’s American Idol, but you could easily predict the show’s finale would mark its lowest-rated closer yet.
Given that Idol is down about 29 percent this season, there was no way Wednesday night’s climactic reveal would overtake last May’s finale, which represented the show’s previous finale low.
Last night, Fox says 21.5 million viewers tuned in to watch Phillip Phillips take the top prize, with a 6.3 rating in the adult demographic. That’s down 32 percent from last year, though up 43 percent from last week’s results show. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Robert Sabo/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images
After the sudden, inglorious exit of rabble-rousing pundit Keith Olbermann from Current TV last Thursday, Viewpoint With Eliot Spitzer debuted the next night in Olbermann’s former time slot to ominous ratings. The former New York governor’s program scored only 47,000 viewers total, slightly more than a quarter of the network’s March average for that time slot. In the make-or-break 25-54 demographic, Viewpoint landed only 10,000 viewers. The network previously bungled promotion for the show when they encouraged fans to follow Spitzer on Twitter. Spitzer does not have a Twitter account.
Read more:
Keith Olbermann fired by Current TV, threatens lawsuit
Keith Olbermann clashes with Current TV, media, and Twitter followers
Keith Olbermann calls Fox News ‘political whorehouse’
Image Credit: Sheryl Nields/Grant Wilson
The announcement last night that Ghost Hunters‘ co-lead investigator Grant Wilson will be departing the series translated into a big ratings win for the show’s winter finale.
Last night’s hour-long episode drew 2.2 million total viewers, the show’s highest ratings in 15 months. In adults 18-49, Ghost Hunters drew 1.1 million, making it the series’ top performance in that measure since October and a season high. That 18-49 number reflects grown of 36 percent from the last finale episode, on Dec. 7.
Wilson told the audience last night that he would be leaving the show after the upcoming season. “It is with mixed emotion that I am announcing my departure from the cast of Ghost Hunters,” he said. “While paranormal investigating has always been and will remain a passion for me, after enjoying nearly eight successful seasons on television, I have made the decision to leave the series in order to focus on other aspects of my personal life.”
Wilson isn’t totally done yet, though: He’ll figure into six new episodes, beginning in April, culminating with a final new episode of Ghost Hunters on Wednesday, May 16 at 9 p.m. Twenty new episodes of the series remain for 2012. Taking Ghost Hunters timeslot in the interim is — not shockingly — Ghost Hunters International, which returns to SyFy on Feb. 22 with seven new episodes.
James Hibberd
@James_Hibberd
Lynette Rice
@EWLynette
