NEW YORK (Jan. 23) - It was a huge week for Fox in the TV ratings -
with one asterisk.
Fox crushed its competition last week behind a huge pro football
game, the return of "American Idol" and an unusually strong
Thursday lineup. Its average of 24.2 million prime-time viewers was
more than double any other network, according to Nielsen Media
Research.
It was Fox's biggest week in the ratings ever, except for weeks
when it broadcast the Super Bowl.
The asterisk was for "American Idol." The game's season debut
reached 33.4 million people last Tuesday, with the second night
getting 30.4 million, Nielsen said. It remains by far the most
popular prime-time series. But the premiere ratings were down 11
percent from the 2007 debut. Second-night viewership was off 18
percent. Those are similar to ratings decreases for other popular
series in the DVR era, but "American Idol" has never performed
like any other series before.
The frigid National Football Conference championship game
between the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers was seen by a
staggering 53.9 million viewers on Sunday, the biggest audience for
an NFC championship since the January 1995 game between Dallas and
San Francisco. The last time the Giants played in that game,
against Minnesota in 2001, there were 30.5 million viewers.
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(L to R) Sophia Bush and Daphne Zuniga of "One Tree Hill" visit Macy's in New York City on Saturday January 19, 2007.
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Actor John Schneider and actress Biannca Marroquin (r) during their Broadway debut in "Chicago" at the Ambassador Theatre January 14, 2008 in New York City.
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It all points toward exceptional ratings for a Super Bowl with
the Giants against the undefeated New England Patriots - also to be
broadcast on Fox.
Possibly because of a promotional carry-over from "Idol,"
Fox's Thursday games "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" and
"Don't Forget the Lyrics" led the network to its first ratings
win on a Thursday night since 1992.
Last week Fox moved into first place for the TV season among
viewers aged 18 to 49, its target demographic. The network has won
among that group the last three seasons and it's virtually certain
to do so again.
Fox also has a chance to finish a season as TV's most popular
network among all viewers for the first time. It's third behind CBS
and ABC, but a Super Bowl and full season of "American Idol"
offers a real opportunity to move up.
For the week, Fox had a 13.4 rating and 21 share. CBS averaged
9.7 million viewers (6.3 rating, 10 share), NBC had 7.8 million
viewers (5.1, 8), ABC 6.2 million (4.1, 7), the CW 2 million (1.3,
2), My Network TV 1 million (0.7, 1) and ION Television 490,000
(0.3, 1).
Among Spanish-language viewers, Univision had 3.5 million
viewers (1.8 rating, 3 share), Telemundo 1.2 million (0.7, 1),
TeleFutura 800,000 (0.4, 1) and Azteca 130,000 (0.1, 0).
NBC's "Nightly News" won the evening news ratings race,
averaging 9.6 million viewers (6.5 rating, 12 share). ABC's "World
News" averaged 9.2 million (6.3, 12) and the "CBS Evening News"
7.2 million (4.9, 9).
A ratings point represents 1,128,000 households, or 1 percent of
the nation's estimated 112.8 million TV homes. The share is the
percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of Jan. 14-20, the top 10 shows, their networks and
viewerships: NFC Championship: N.Y. Giants vs. Green Bay, Fox,
53.94 million; "NFC Championship Post-Game Show" (10:16-10:22),
Fox, 40.64 million; "American Idol" (Tuesday), Fox, 33.42
million; "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 30.44 million; "NFC
Championship Post-Game Show" (10:22-10:41), Fox, 23.1 million;
"NCIS," CBS, 15.82 million; "Deal or No Deal" (Monday), NBC,
15.08 million; "CSI: Miami," CBS, 14.8 million; "CSI: Crime
Scene Investigation," CBS, 14.15 million; "Without a Trace,"
CBS, 13.29 million.
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is a division of CBS
Corp. Fox is a unit of News Corp. NBC is owned by General Electric
Co. Telemundo is owned by General Electric. TeleFutura is a
division of Univision. ION Television is owned by ION Media
Networks.
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