NEW YORK (July 8) - You wouldn't necessarily know it from last week,
but Nielsen Media Research says TV viewership is on the rise.
The company said Tuesday that the average American watched 127 1/4
hours of television in May, or the equivalent of more than five
full days. That's up from 121 hours and 48 minutes in May 2007.
The typical person also spent 26 1/2 hours using the Internet in
May, up from 24 hours, 16 minutes the year before, Nielsen said.
So how come TV ratings for individual networks and shows keep
going down? That's because of all the choices; nearly two-thirds of
American homes now have digital cable or satellite with an average
of 160 channels to choose from.
For the broadcast networks, Nielsen's report Tuesday was a
welcome diversion. The week of the Fourth of July is traditionally
the lightest week of the year for television watching, with
barbecues and fireworks taking precedence over the repeats and
reality shows on television.
Last week was no different. Even though CBS averaged more
viewers than any other network, it still had a record low rating in
the youthful demographic of 18-to-49-year-old viewers. The start of
another "Big Brother" edition is likely to bring more young
viewers back.
NBC's "America's Got Talent" was once again the nation's most
popular show, the only one to log more than 10 million viewers.
CBS averaged 6.3 million viewers in prime-time (4.2 rating, 8
share). NBC had 5.9 million (3.7, 7), Fox 5.4 million (3.4, 7), ABC
4.6 million (3.0, 6), the CW 1.4 million (0.9, 2), My Network TV
890,000 (0.6, 1) and ION Television 370,000 (0.2, 0).
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision averaged 3.3
million viewers (1.7 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 950,000 (0.5,
1), TeleFutura 500,000 (0.3, 1) and Azteca 120,000 (0.1, 0).
NBC's "Nightly News" won the evening news ratings race,
averaging 7.4 million viewers (5.2 rating, 11 share). ABC's "World
News" had 6.9 million (4.9, 11) and the "CBS Evening News" 5.6
million (3.8, 8).
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 June 30-July 6, the top 10 shows, their networks
and viewerships: "America's Got Talent," NBC, 12.04 million;
"Wipeout," ABC, 9.46 million; "Criminal Minds," CBS, 9.13
million; "So You Think You Can Dance" (Wednesday), Fox, 8.76
million; "CSI: NY," CBS, 8.5 million; "Two and a Half Men,"
CBS, 8.49 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 8.21 million; "House,"
Fox, 8.06 million; "CSI: Miami," CBS, 8.03 million; "Hell's
Kitchen, Fox, 8.03 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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