Sunday's night's Season Three premiere of "Mad Men" made a strong showing in the ratings with an audience 34 percent larger than the one for last season's premiere.

An audience of 2.8 million viewers tuned in for the 10 p.m. telecast up from the 2.1 million who watched the Season Two premiere.

The three showings of the AMC drama at 10 and 11 p.m. Sunday and 1 a.m. Monday drew just under 4 million viewers cumulatively. That's up 25 percent from last season's cumulative audience for the opener.

Continue reading "AMC's 'Mad Men' starts strong in ratings" »

Posted by David Zurawik at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Ratings
        

Jay Leno's farewell latenight show Friday scored big numbers nationally, but nowhere was the audience larger in percentage of viewers than Baltimore.

Leno earned a 15.4 rating in Baltimore Friday night, which translates to 170,000 TV homes or 214,000 viewers.

The four closest cities were: Pittsburgh (15.3 rating), Nashville (13.8), Milwaukee (13.8) and Providence-New Bedford (13.5).

Continue reading "Baltimore tops nation on tune-in for Jay Leno farewell" »

Posted by David Zurawik at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Ratings
        

First the poor reviews, now the ratings -- this is not good news for Jimmy Fallon and his latenight show on NBC.

It was only by an eyelash, but the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson topped Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in total viewers for the first time.

Ferguson's show also tied Fallon's in adults 25 to54 years-of-age for the first time, according to Nielsen live plus same day ratings for the week ending May 8.

Continue reading "Craig Ferguson edges past Jimmy Fallon in ratings" »

Posted by David Zurawik at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)
Categories: Network TV, Ratings, Talk Shows
        

Even as the Nielsen Company launches a major public relations campaign in Baltimore to assure station executives and viewers that the new Local People Meters that will start measuring audiences here in July are trustworthy, the organization's entire TV ratings system comes under attack this week for a massive foul-up.

With network executives needing prime-time network overnight ratings more than ever to decide whether to renew or cancel marginal series in advance of the May 18 start of their upfront fall season announcements, Nielsen has been unable to supply any data since Sunday because of what the company is describing as a computer malfunction. That's right, just like Janet Jackson's wardrobe at the Super Bowl.

Nielsen is feverishly trying to play catch-up and get the ratings out starting with last Saturday and Sunday, but the company's inability to deliver the goods has only added fuel to the fire of those industry executives who are questioning the whole system.

Continue reading "Nielsen hits new low with inability to deliver TV ratings" »

Posted by David Zurawik at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Ratings
        

For years, Baltimore has been one of the nation's most stable and predictable TV markets when it comes to local news ratings. Every ratings story followed some variation of the same theme: WBAL (Channel 11) and WJZ (Channel 13) jockeying for number one and two in ratings, with WMAR (Channel 2) a deep and distant third. WBFF (Channel 45) found its own niche programming news when the others weren't at 10 p.m.  But all that looks as if it could change dramatically in early July when The Nielsen Company introduces its Local People Meters into the market.

Continue reading "Will Nielsen People Meters rock TV news in Baltimore? " »

Posted by David Zurawik at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Baltimore Television, Ratings
        

For the most part, audiences continued tuning out network programming as the May sweeps started this week with one of the poorest opening nights in years.

Network programming was down across the board year to year, and both veteran and rookie series drew their smallest audiences ever.

ABC's Grey's Anatomy won the night, but with the lowest ratings for an episode in the series' history. NBC's widely-publicized new cop drama, Southland, continued its slide, while CBS's Survivor scored its lowest numbers ever for an original episode.

A bad month of May is going to mean worse months of June, July, August and September for the networks -- and there is simply nothing on the programming horizon for May to alter that equation.

Posted by David Zurawik at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Network TV, Ratings
        

For the first in the history of cable TV news, MSNBC has drawn a larger prime-time audience than CNN. And Fox continues to build the largest audience of all from 8 to 11 p.m. each night, the most lucrative part of the broadcast day.

That's the news from the March ratings period, and as much as I would like to be dispassionate about it, I just can't. That's because I know how dangerous a trend we have here with viewers flocking to fiercely-partisan, ideologically-driven opinion-based programs as they abandon productions that seek to provide down-the-middle coverage, verified information and analysis that explores all sides of issues.

In this time of national crisis, it is no small matter that viewers are choosing the bombast and posturing of Keith Olbermann on the left, and Bill O'Reilly on the right  just when sound information is needed more than ever.

Continue reading "MSNBC beats CNN in prime time - and Fox wins it all" »

Posted by David Zurawik at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: CNN, Cable and Network News, Fox News, MSNBC, Ratings
        

What do you make of this fact: Lost scored its lowest rating ever for an original episode with this week's episode?

Do you think it might be the end of expensive, serialized, scripted drama in network prime time? Or is Lost losing its grip on a mass audience?

I hate to say it, but ABC could make more money with cable channel TLC's Jon and Kate Plus 8, a loved and hated reality show about the everyday lives of a super-sized family. The demographics are better, and it costs less then 10 percent what Lost costs to make. (Read about Jon and Kate topping Heroes and 24 in young female demographics here.)

Say goodnight to the nights of of large ensemble dramas. Say hello to Jay Leno and shows like Jon and Kate -- as the downsizing of network prime-time TV accelerates.

Posted by David Zurawik at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: ABC, Ratings, Scripted Series
        

Here is one the better ratings stories of the season. The Monday night season finale of Jon and Kate Plus 8, a reality series about the day-to-day life of super-sized family, beat such network series as Fox's 24 and NBC's Heroes with the advertiser-dream audience of women 18 to 34.

It also topped Two and Half Men and Rules of Engagement with that same audience. Both comedies are on CBS.

Meanwhile, nothing on cable came close to Jon and Kate in any major demographic.

The series, which is produced by The Learning Channel, a Maryland-based cable operation, was featured as part of trend story about TV and big families, that I wrote in my Z on TV column for the Sunday Sun two weeks ago. You can read it here.

Continue reading "Young women love TLC's Jon and Kate Plus 8 " »

Posted by David Zurawik at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Ratings, Reality TV
        

Last night's appearance by President Barack Obama was a ratings boon for The Tonight Show. The audience in metered overnight cities like Baltimore was the highest since Jan. 24, 2005, when the show featured a tribute to Johnny Carson, according to Nielsen figures released by NBC.

The last time Tonight scored a higher overnight rating was on May 14, 1998 -- the night of the finale of Seinfeld when the cast appeared on Leno's program. Overnight ratings for last night's show were the fourth-highest in the 16-year history of Leno's show.

Bottom line, one out of every four TVs in use last night was tuned to The Tonight Show. The overnight ratings from metered markets are not conclusive or final. But they generally match up when final figures are released.

Continue reading "Nielsen: Obama visit a big boost for Leno ratings" »

Posted by David Zurawik at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)
Categories: NBC, Ratings, TV and Politics
        

C-SPAN, the camera that never blinks in its coverage of American government, turns 30 today. And to celebrate, the cable industry's public affairs channel is releasing a survey that shows 20 percent of cable TV households, about 39 million viewers, watch C-SPAN regularly -- at least once or twice a week.

The survey also shows an audience that is very active politically, fairly evenly split between liberal and conservative viewers -- and surprisingly young with 43 percent of its viewers between the ages of 18 and 49. Ninety percent of C-SPAN viewers say they voted in 2008.

Here are some highlights from the survey that was conducted by Hart Research Associates:

Continue reading "C-SPAN turns 30 today -- and it's getting younger" »

Posted by David Zurawik at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Cable and Network News, Ratings, TV and Politics
        

HBO's live telecast of Will Ferrell's stage production You're Welcome America -- A Final Night With George W. Bush was seen by an audience of 2.3 million viewers Saturday night.

That's a big same-day audience for the premium pay cable channel. It is biggest for an HBO comedy program since the first showing of Chris Rock: Never Scared in April 2004, according to Variety.

You can read read my review of the Saturday night telecast here.

Posted by David Zurawik at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: HBO, Ratings