ratings

The night’s highest-rated show lifted NBC to a very narrow victory over CBS on Tuesday. The Voice drew a 3.4 adults 18-49 rating, with a 9 p.m. episode that fell 8% from last week to its lowest rating this season. NBC finished the night with a 2.4 adults 18-49 rating and 7 share, with CBS just behind with a 2.3/7.

CBS’s decade-old smash, NCIS, held onto the No. 1 position, drawing more than 17 million viewers. Right behind was the network’s sitcom hit, The Big Bang Theory, seen by 16 million viewers, followed by spinoff NCIS: Los Angeles, with 13 million viewers.

Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings will provide demographic data for tablet and smartphone media. ABC will be able to measure audience demographics and understand the reach and frequency of online campaigns across ABC content on the Web and in mobile apps.

The courtroom is No. 1 in households in a week that saw few gains from the week before. Other to post gains included Ellen, Jeopardy, Dish Nation, CSI: Miami and Criminal Minds.

After eight seasons of teasing, How I Met Your Mother finally revealed the titular mom last night, and the results were, as Barney might say, legendary. The sitcom surged 31% from last week and just barely beat NBC’s juggernaut The Voice in their shared timeslot. Mother‘s finale averaged a 3.4 adults 18-49 rating, up from a 2.6 last week and its best rating since February. Mother finished a tenth ahead of Voice in the 8 p.m. half hour, though the latter, which aired for two hours, was the night’s top show overall with a 3.6. Mother was second.

Six-month ratings rise continues as the Debmar-Mercury talk show ranks fourth overall in metered markets in first 10 days of May sweeps.

Even with Survivor falling to its lowest-rated finale in its 26 seasons, CBS still earned an easy victory Sunday night. Survivor averaged a 2.6 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., down 10% from a 2.9 for last spring’s finale. That rating will likely rise when final numbers come out tomorrow, as the winner of this season wasn’t announced until 10:09 p.m. Survivor was the night’s highest-rated show, admirable considering how long the show has been running, as a number of other finales aired.

In the television season about to end, some of the most popular new shows from a year ago have not built on their initial success — and in fact have wound up in premature decline.The excitement that surrounded the introduction, in fall 2011, of comedies like New Girl on Fox, Two Broke Girls on CBS and Last Man Standing on ABC, and the family-friendly drama Once Upon a Time on ABC, largely fizzled in season two, as their ratings fell.

ABC’s Scandal hit a new series high last night with its penultimate episode of the season, finishing with a better rating than American Idol for the first time. Scandal averaged a 3.2 adults 18-49 rating at 10 p.m., up 23% from last week’s 2.6 and the No. 3 show on the night behind CBS’s The Big Bang Theory (4.6) and Two and a Half Men (3.4). The red-hot drama, which is well up over its abbreviated first-season run, also improved on lead-in Grey’s Anatomy by 10%.

In their first head-to-head matchup of the season, both NBC’s The Voice and Fox’s American Idol had something to chirp about. Voice topped its rival among adults 18-49 by a small margin during their shared hour. But Idol finished with the higher rating for the night thanks to a strong second hour, after Voice had gone off the air. Voice averaged a 2.7 18-49 rating at 8 p.m., ahead of Idol’s 2.5 in the hour. It was the lowest rating of the season for the special edition of NBC’s hit singing show, which usually airs only on Monday and Tuesday.

The Voice boosted NBC to another strong Tuesday night, and lead-out Grimm won its timeslot for the second straight week. Voice averaged a 3.6 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., down 8% from last week to a new season low. But the show was still easily the night’s top program, with No. 2 NCIS on CBS averaging a 2.9 at 8 p.m. Voice also gave a boost to lead-out Grimm, which averaged a 1.9, even to last week, to win the 10 p.m. hour. NBC finished first in all six half hours of primetime.

The Following, the gruesome series that debuted on Fox in January, is a hit. With 7.8 million viewers, it was Fox’s most popular program last week after American Idol and will be on the network’s schedule for next season when that is unveiled next week. Meanwhile, struggling NBC had a lot of hopes for Hannibal, its tale of a better-known fictional serial killer, for its spring schedule.

Others doing well in the week ending April 28 include some game shows as well as off-net sitcoms and weekly hours.

On a generally slow night for broadcast, two 10 p.m. dramas saw solid gains over last week. NBC’s Revolution, which finished first in the timeslot, averaged a 2.1 adults 18-49 rating, up 17% over last week’s season-low 1.8. It grew despite a smaller lead-in from The Voice, easily the night’s top show, which slid 9 percent from last week to a season-low 3.9. And CBS’s 10 p.m. drama, Hawaii Five-0, also improved over last week, up 12% to a 1.9.

Meredith Corp.’s syndicated daily lifestyle program, The Better Show, is now fully C3 measured by Nielsen. “We were very encouraged after seeing Nielsen benchmark data last fall,” said Brendan Kelly, […]

Several shows saw week-to-week gains for their season finales last night, and Fox won the evening thanks to NASCAR runover.The network averaged a 2.1 adults 18-49 rating and 6 share in primetime, peaking with a 2.7 from 8 to 8:30 p.m., when the race finished up. That shifted Fox’s shows back, with The Simpsons (1.7) starting at 8:25 p.m., followed by Bob’s Burgers (2.0), Family Guy (2.1) and American Dad (2.1).

George H.W. Bush was president, Joan Lunden still co-hosted Good Morning America and David Letterman continued to fester at NBC the last time this happened. CBS will march into next season as the No. 1 network among 18-to-49-year-olds for the first time in 21 years. And, CBS as usual will win in total viewers, although this time it’s a mega-rout. The network is averaging 12 million viewers in the season-to-date averages, followed by ABC (7.8 million), Fox (7.1 million) and NBC (7 million).

CBS won its second straight sweeps Thursday night, finishing with the top two shows in primetime. The Big Bang Theory averaged a 4.6 adults 18-49 rating, up a tenth over last week and easily the No. 1 show of the night. Lead-out Two and a Half Men rebounded from last week’s series low with a 3.1, up 11%. Fox’s American Idol dipped to another season-low rating, a 2.5, its worst Thursday number this season and a series low for a regularly scheduled episode.

When CBS TV Distribution entertainment newsmagazine The Insider announced a partnership six months ago with Yahoo gossip website OMG! to combine their brands, OMG Insider established itself as a couple to watch. But since its official January launch with set overhauls, new hires and tonal shifts, Nielsen and Comscore data indicate OMG Insider has yet to see a meaningful boost either on TV or online, where it faces a crowded field of competitors.

A number of hit shows saw big declines on the seventh day of the May sweeps, including Fox’s American Idol, which fell to a Wednesday season low. The program averaged a 2.8 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., down 13% from last week. It still boosted Fox to its 16th straight Wednesday night victory. Idol faced more original competition last night than it had in weeks.

On a rather lackluster night for broadcast, ABC and NBC saw improvements in the 10 p.m. timeslot. NBC’s Grimm averaged a 2.0 adults 18-49 rating at 10 p.m., up 54% from its most recent Friday outing and winning the hour on broadcast. Still, Grimm did lose quite a bit of its substantial lead-in from The Voice, which averaged a season-low 3.7 for a two-hour episode at 8 p.m. Meanwhile, on ABC, Diane Sawyer’s interview with Amanda Knox averaged a 1.7 at 10 p.m., second in the timeslot and marking a 12-week high for the network in the hour.

NBC’s The Voice remained the top draw among young adults last week, but it was a more balanced Fox and CBS that emerged the network winners as April came to a close.

The finales of Bones and The Following gave Fox a boost last night. The network drew its best Monday rating in six weeks, averaging a 2.3 adults 18-49 rating and 6 share, finishing second on the night behind NBC with a 3.4/9. Bones averaged a 2.1 at 8 p.m., its best rating since March 18 and up 11% over last year’s finale. Following drew a 2.6 at 9 p.m., growing 8% over last week with its top-rated episode since March 11. The first-year show has already been renewed for next season, as has Bones.

The extensive preemptions for news reports in the week ending April 21 kept ratings flat or down, with the exception of some of the magazine shows, which featured a lot of coverage of the aftermath of the Boston bombings.

Must-watch TV is looking more like must-wait TV. The rapid rise of time-shifted viewing — driven by DVRs, video-on-demand options and mobile devices — decimated TV ratings in the first quarter and threatens to drag down the annual upfront ad-sales season that swings into high gear in just a couple of weeks.

May sweeps began on Thursday and that means a lot of season finales in the coming weeks. CBS aired one last night, with the fourth-season ender of The Good Wife improving over last week. The show averaged a 1.6 adults 18-49 rating, up 7% over last week. It was down a tenth from last year’s finale and managed only a third-place finish in the demo in the hour. But among the adults 25-54 that CBS targets, Wife took first at 9 p.m. with a 2.3, and it also won in total viewers with 9 million.

Airing opposite the NFL Draft, which drew a large crowd to ESPN and NFL Network last night, CBS won the first night of the May sweeps with relative ease. The network averaged a 2.6 adults 18-49 rating and 8 share in primetime, comfortably ahead of Fox, which finished second with a 2.2/7, and ABC, which was third with a 2.2/6. Nearly every show on the night saw declines versus its previous original outing, hurt by the draft and the large amount of original programming on broadcast.

Fox won its 15th straight Wednesday night against some rerun-heavy competition on Wednesday. American Idol averaged a 3.2 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., down 3% from last week. It was easily the top-rated show on an evening when every other Big Four network aired at least one repeat. CBS’s Survivor, the night’s No. 2 program with a 2.7, was the only other show to draw better than a 1.8.

The broadcast networks stretched their normally half-hour newscasts to an hour on April 15 and on Friday, when the second of the two suspects, holed up in a tarp-covered boat outside a suburban Boston home, was captured by police during primetime. CBS won the week in primetime, averaging 8.3 million viewers (5.3 rating, 9 share).

NBC had the night’s top show, but CBS had the more consistent lineup, leading the latter to a very tight Tuesday night win. CBS averaged a 2.2 adults 18-49 rating and 6 share in primetime, just ahead of NBC’s 2.1/6. Voice was the No. 1 show of the evening, averaging a 4.0 at 8 p.m. The night’s No. 2 show, NCIS, aired in the same timeslot and drew a 2.7. But while NCIS lead-out NCIS: Los Angeles retained most of its lead-in with a 2.6, NBC’s ratings plummeted.

The measurement service has signed WPTY (ABC) and WLMT (CW) in a multi-year ratings contract.

Nielsen has been promising “enhancements” to its local TV ratings for years. While replacing paper diaries has been elusive, there may be a solution soon.

One week before its season finale, Fox’s The Following surged to a five-week high, becoming Monday night’s highest-rated scripted series and No. 2 show overall, behind NBC’s dominant-as-usual The Voice. Following averaged a 2.4 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m., up 14% from last week. It marked the first time that Following has drawn a better rating than Revolution, the 10 p.m. NBC drama that follows Voice.

CBS won its eighth straight Sunday night with two of its shows seeing gains over the prior week. The Amazing Race was the night’s top show among adults 18-49, drawing a 2.4 rating, according to Nielsen overnights, up 4 percent over the previous week. It won its 8 p.m. timeslot and topped ABC’s competing Once Upon a Time, the night’s No. 2 show, by 0.3.

Live-plus-time-shifted data is most representative of American consumers’ current television viewing habits according to TVB, which on thursday reiterated its position on audience measurement related to actual TV viewing. An analysis of Nielsen time-shifted data reveals that live-plus-same day A25-54 viewing is consistently moving closer to the nationall C3 currency rating standard while the live-only data stream is moving farther from the national standard.

Rentrak Corp. today announced a multi-year local TV ratings contract with Journal Broadcast Group for its CBS affiliate, KMTV Omaha, Neb. (DMA 75) “I have long been a fan of […]