ratings

The finale of The Bachelor surged to a season high last night, lifting ABC to its best Monday night in one and a half years. Bachelor averaged a 3.3 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., up 14% over last year’s season ender. (Note that the finale ran until 10:07 p.m., which is not reflected in the overnight rating, so the number may adjust upward when final ratings come out.) The strong numbers came against weak competition on the other broadcast networks.

Fox had the top show of the night and CBS had the No. 2 program, fueling the networks to a tie for first place on Sunday. Both averaged a 1.8 adults 18-49 rating and 5 share, just barely outpacing third-place ABC with a 1.7/5. Family Guy was the night’s No. 1 program, averaging a 2.6 at 9 p.m., up 8% from its most recent original three weeks ago.

It was apparently a smart move for CBS to switch Golden Boy permanently to Tuesdays. The show was originally scheduled to air on Fridays after a two-week sneak preview on Tuesday, but CBS decided last week to keep the show on Tuesdays after it drew so-so ratings. The network nonetheless ran one episode of Boy this past Friday, and it drew terrible numbers. It averaged a mere 1.0 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m.,  finishing fourth in its timeslot and 17% below the 1.2 that the season finale of CSI: NY, the show that had been airing in the timeslot, drew two weeks ago.

The Raycom syndicated strip, now in its third season is looking to expand beyond Raycom’s 47 stations in 36 markets.

Fox won its sixth consecutive night last night with an extended edition of American Idol. Idol ran from 8 to 9:30 p.m., a half hour longer than usual. It averaged a 3.5 adults 18-49 rating, down 5% from last week. But that average may rise slightly when final ratings come in, as Idol ran two minutes longer than usual, and that time is not included in the overnight rating.

Looking at all Nielsen C3 TV viewers in the first half of the TV season through Jan. 13 — all broadcast and ad-supported cable networks gained over Nielsen program live-only data. C3 ratings among 18-49 viewers were at 33.1 million versus 31.5 million when looking at Nielsen program live-only data. On an index basis, that places C3 five index points higher that live program-only.

On a night littered with reruns, Fox was the only Big Five network with an all-original schedule. And though American Idol fell once again from last week, it still powered the network to a dominant win on the night. Idol averaged a 3.7 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., down from a 3.9 last Wednesday. But it was up from a season-low 3.4 for Tuesday’s episode. Only three other original programs aired on the Big Five last night.

If fall is the television season’s sink-or-swim deep end, then midseason is the kiddie pool. Fewer launches, lower ratings expectations and softer competition often pave the way for such slow-growing hits as Grey’s Anatomy, The Office and, most recently, Scandal. But nearly all of the 2012-13 midseason entries have drowned so far and, with the exception of Fox’s renewed Kevin Bacon hit The Following, have done so in rather gruesome fashion.

In what’s becoming a familiar story for American Idol, the Fox singing competition saw its ratings fall, but the network still won the night by a sizable margin anyway. Idol averaged a 3.4 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m. last night, off 11% from last Wednesday’s edition. It was a special episode for Idol, which always expands from two to three nights during the semifinals.

The History network’s first installment of its new miniseries was seen by 13.1 million people Sunday. CBS won the week with an average of 9.1 million viewers in prime time (5.9 rating, 10 share). Fox averaged 6.6 million viewers (4.0, 6), ABC had 6.1 million (3.9, 6), NBC had 4.1 million (2.7, 4), the CW had 1.2 million and Ion Television 1.1 million (both 0.8, 1).

With CBS in reruns, Fox grabbed first place on Monday night, led by the highest-rated program of the evening, the recently renewed drama The Following. Following drew a 2.8 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m., according to Nielsen overnights, even to last week’s rating.

ABC, ABC Family and ESPN will announce Tuesday that they have adopted the Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings system to measure viewing across both television and online sites, and will base all sales on estimates of what total viewing will be on all those platforms.

This was one of the points CBS chief Leslie Moonves made to investors Monday to promote his favorite message: that all’s well for CBS and broadcasting. He’s been lobbying to have advertisers pay for the viewers who see commercial spots on DVRs as much as seven days after they first air, up from today’s three days. And that’s “coming right around the corner, and that will be good for us,” he said at a wide-ranging Q&A session at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet and Telecom conference.

The premiere of ABC’s new drama Red Widow didn’t make much of a ratings splash. Neither did the return of NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice. Widow averaged a 1.4 adults 18-49 rating from 9 to 11 p.m. Sunday night, tying the recent premiere of Zero Hour as ABC’s lowest-rated drama bow of the season. Apprentice, meanwhile, aired in the same two-hour timeslot and managed just a 1.6, the show’s lowest-rated premiere ever.

ABC’s Good Morning America has now led NBC’s Today for the last 27 weeks in a row, all 21 weeks in the 2012-13 season, and 16 of the 21 weeks in the key 25-54 demographics that news-oriented advertisers want.

It was pretty clear that the February sweeps came to a close on Wednesday. On Thursday night, with only four original shows airing on the Big Five, Fox cruised to an easy victory over competition that consisted mostly of repeats. American Idol averaged a 3.8 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., off 3% from last week.

The Spanish-language network on Wednesday put a bow on an historic February, which saw it finish ahead of one of the Big Four broadcasters — NBC — in a major sweep for the first time.

In NBC’s Today Show’s home market, New York, Today was beat by Fox O&O WNYW’s Good Day New York for the first time since the introduction of the Local People Meters in 2003. For the February sweep, Good Day NY averaged a 1.3/9 in adults 25-54 vs. 1.2/.8 for Today from 7-9 a.m.

For the first time ever on a Wednesday night, Modern Family drew a better rating than American Idol. Idol slid to a performance episode season low last night, averaging a 3.8 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m. Family was slightly ahead at 3.9, though Fox notes that Idol will probably increase by a tenth when final ratings come out later today.

On Feb. 28, 1983, the long-running CBS series M*A*S*H ended after 11 seasons with a special 2 1/2-hour finale, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, that was watched by an estimated 121.6 million people.

More people spent time away from their TVs in the week ending Feb. 17 and most shows were down or flat from the previous frame. Among the few shows posting weekly gains were Trisha and Baggage.

The new CBS drama Golden Boy won its admittedly very weak timeslot in its debut last night, posting an okay rating. Boy averaged a 1.8 in adults 18-49, according to Nielsen, improving a solid 20% on former timeslot occupant Vegas’ 1.5 last week. Boy doubled the rating for NBC’s competing Smash and finished 50% ahead of ABC’s Body of Proof in the 10 p.m. timeslot. Still, it wasn’t a remarkable rating even considering the late hour. Boy dropped 38 percent of its strong lead-in, NCIS: Los Angeles, which averaged a 2.6.

The Oscars on ABC had its biggest audience in three years and Jimmy Kimmel’s post-Oscars talk show got its biggest audience in the eight years he’s been doing it. Similarly, the Oscars-focused edition of Good Morning America on Monday reached 6.13 million viewers, above the show’s season average of 5.27 million. NBC’s Today show on Monday had 4.71 million viewers.

ABC continued its midseason Monday night surge, finishing No. 1 for the second straight week with a lineup fueled by The Bachelor. The network averaged a 2.7 adults 18-49 rating and 7 share in primetime, just ahead of Fox at 2.5/7 and CBS at 2.5/6. Last week ABC and CBS tied for first for the night, but last night CBS aired a rerun at 10 p.m., which pulled down its nightly average.

it was the most-watched Oscars telecast in three years. Last year’s show, when The Artist won best picture, had an audience of 39.3 million people. After bringing in Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane as host this year, ABC saw an 11% ratings boost over 2012 among viewers ages 18 to 49 years old.

With DVRs, video on demand, game consoles and streaming services, tablets and smartphones, the way people watch television is changing and the industry is struggling to keep on top of it all. Even the idea of “watching television” is in flux. Are you “watching TV” when you stream an episode of Downton Abbey on a tablet?

With ABC airing the Academy Awards last night, the other networks were largely in reruns. CBS was the only Big Four network that aired an original show, The Amazing Race. Not surprisingly Race was broadcast’s highest-rated show against the awards program, though it sunk to a series-low rating. Race averaged a 1.8 adults 18-49 rating at 8 p.m., falling 28% from last week’s season premiere.

Fox grabbed its first Thursday sweeps win last night with a double dose of American Idol. A two-hour episode of the show boosted Fox past CBS, which won the first two Thursdays of the February sweeps. Idol averaged a 3.9 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., jumping 8% week to week in the demo. It grew from a 3.8 in its first hour to a 4.0 in its second. But CBS still had the night’s top-rated show, The Big Bang Theory, which averaged a 5.4 at 8 p.m.

CSI got a little sweeps spring after posting a series-low rating last week. CBS’s long-running procedural saw the biggest week-to-week improvements for any show on a night when a handful of broadcast programs saw gains. CSI grew 21% from a 1.9 to a 2.3. It also tied ABC’s Castle as the highest-rated 10 p.m. program on the Big Three so far this week.

After a meeting in New York Tuesday, the ratings company will roll out a system to measure broadband, Xbox and, in time, iPads, with more changes to come.

Sunday’s last episode of the season left many Downton Abbey fans up in arms because of the surprise demise of a popular character. CBS had 15 of the 20 most-watched shows on broadcast television last week, not an unusual showing for television’s most dominant network. The network had one failure, though: the new reality show The Job was fired after only two episodes. Last week’s episode had 3.3 million viewers.

All the magazines were either up or flat. Wheel of Fortune is the No.1 show in first run. In addition, the week ending Feb. 10 saw new season highs for Inside Edition, Judge Judy, Criminal Minds and CSI: Miami.

Last night ABC’s third-year drama Body of Proof returned to low ratings, and it finished third in the timeslot, behind CBS and Univision but ahead of NBC’s Smash, which slid to another series low. Proof averaged a 1.2 adults 18-49 rating at 10 p.m., off 29% from its 1.7 season-long average last year. It also tied a series low. Also in that hour, week two of NBC’s Smash averaged a 0.9, down from a 1.2 for its second-season premiere two weeks ago. (Last week’s episode was preempted by the State of the Union address.)

There has been a lot of talk this television season about the lack of new hits. But many veteran shows are also performing poorly. So far this season, only a handful of returning programs are doing better than they were last season.

Sunday’s audience surpassed even the audience for the third season premiere in January, when about 7.9 million viewers tuned in, a 20-year record for PBS.

The long-running ABC reality show, whose popularity seems to go in cycles depending on the likeability of the bachelor, is in an up cycle right now, hitting a season high for the second straight week. Bachelor averaged a 3.0 in adults 18-49 from 8 to 10 p.m., up 11% from last week. It marked the highest-rated non-finale episode of Bachelor since March 7, 2011. And it helped lift lead-out Castle to a season-high 2.2 at 10 p.m., where it won its timeslot.

The new report tracks a 28-day audience lift when DVR and video-on-demand viewing are added to live audience viewing numbers.

On a holiday weekend Sunday when TV usage was down 6% overall, both of ABC’s drama offerings rebounded from series lows. Once Upon a Time‘s trip to “Manhattan” took along 7.5 million total passengers while netting a 2.3 demo rating, up 6% and a tenth from last week’s nadir. Likewise, Revenge (with 6 million and a 1.8) surged 15% and 29%.