ratings

Cross-platform metrics allows networks to use digital views as TV makegoods — and vice versa. But is equating the two channels oversimplifying?

To this point, NBC’s early debut strategy has delivered very strong ratings. Last night, however, not as much. The season premieres of the network’s Thursday comedy lineup were unimpressive, possibly hurt competing against Fox’s The X Factor, which continued to grow in its second week. The Office was the highest-rated of the bunch, averaging a 2.1 adults 18-49 rating.

Not having to face NBC’s hit singing show The Voice appears to have helped Fox’s The X Factor. Factor grew 6% last night compared to last week’s debut, when it faced a special edition of Voice. Last night there was no original Voice, and Factor averaged a 3.5 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m.

President Barack Obama’s appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman on Tuesday night pushed the show to its best ratings in two and a half years, a 4.0/10 in the metered markets.

Go On looks as though it may have staying power, and The Voice is showing better range. That’s the takeaway from Tuesday night’s ratings, with NBC’s new lineup continuing to dominate, though it got weaker as the night went on. For the second straight night, the hit reality singing show The Voice saw gains over the previous week, averaging a 4.5 adults 18-49 rating at 8 p.m. That was up 13% from last Tuesday’s 4.0.

NBC’s highly anticipated new drama Revolution delivered on those expectations last night. The show had the best debut for any new drama in three years, getting a strong lead-in from NBC’s hit reality show The Voice. Revolution averaged a 4.1 adults 18-49 rating at 10 p.m., The last new drama to score that high was ABC’s V, which bowed to a 5.2 in 2009. In fact, Revolution was the highest-rated 10 p.m. drama on any network since an episode of ABC’s Private Practice drew a 4.2 in January 2010.

Warner Bros.’ Ellen was No. 1 among the talk shows with a 2.8 household rating, while Live, which introduced former New York Giants Michael Strahan as Kelly Ripa’s co-host in its season start on Sept. 4, had a 2.8 household rating last week. Among the newcomers, Katie did best, averaging a 2.3 household rating, flat to last September when ABC’s soap General Hospital was on the air in many of Katie’s time slots.

The story of Sunday night, as it will be for the next four months, was football. NBC dominated primetime with Sunday Night Football, and CBS got a nice boost from its 7 p.m. football overrun, which prompted the network to revise its Sunday primetime schedule earlier in the week. SNF averaged a 7.5 adults 18-49 rating from 8:30 to 11 p.m., easily the highest-rated program of the night.

NBC’s Meet the Press accuses CBS of some trickery in the Nielsen ratings and in scheduling designed to make its Face the Nation seem more popular than it actually is. CBS detects the aroma of sour grapes. The incident is a vivid illustration of a newly competitive era on Sundays.

In its fourth airing on Thursday, Katie Couric’s new syndicated talk show dropped 26% in households to a 1.7/5 in the metered markets and 38% to a 0.8/5 in the key women 25-54 demographic. In households, Katie still finished first among the freshman daytime talk shows but by a smaller margin. In W25-54, it was edged by Steve Harvey (0.9/6 in W25-54, 1.3/4 in HH), which finished as No.1 for the first time since the launch of Katie.

With The X Factor once again tussling with an NBC reality show, last night’s real winner may have been Fox’s scripted comedy, Glee. The show returned stronger than it ended last May, becoming Thursday’s top program in adults 18-49 on a night that also featured the season finale of NBC’s America’s Got Talent and part two of The X Factor’s season premiere. Glee averaged a 3.3 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m., up 14% from a 2.9 for last May’s finale.

Steve Hasker, Nielsen’s president of global media products, said the company is looking to extend its measurement capabilities for mobile devices to include apps, which would join tracking Web browsing on tablets and smartphones.

NBC’s The Voice took a chunk out of The X Factor’s season debut last night with a special one-time Wednesday airing designed to blunt the Fox show’s return. It worked. At 8 p.m., when both Voice and Factor aired, the NBC show averaged a 3.3 adults 18-49 rating to the Fox program’s 2.7. But Factor’s rating shot up to a 3.8 in the 9 p.m. hour, when Voice went off the air.

The deal covers the Hispanic broadcaster’s Univision, TeleFutura, Galavisión, Univision Deportes, Univision tlnovelas, ForoTV,  Bandamax, De Película, Película Clásico, Clásico TV, Ritmoson and Telehit.

Judge Judy continues to reign in the week ending Sept. 2, with strong performances coming from many courts and talkers.

Against minimal competition, NBC’s new Tuesday lineup got off to a good start, but whether it holds up once the other networks debut their fall shows over the next two weeks is the big question. The Voice was the No. 1 show on broadcast for the second straight night, averaging a 3.9 adults 18-49 rating, down 7% from Monday’s 4.2 two-hour premiere. That rating went up by a tenth when final numbers came out.

Without the Olympics, it would have been close. But with bigger-than-expected viewership for last month’s Games, NBC will cruise to its second straight summer victory over Fox. NBC is averaging a 2.8 adults 18-49 rating this summer, measured from May 24 to Sept. 9, up 65% over last summer’s 1.7.

The new syndicated newsmagazine from Twentieth Television launched Monday with a 0.7 rating/2 share. Among its high points are Philadelphia, Dallas, Boston, Atlanta and Houston.

The Voice had a strong debut on NBC last night, if not quite as strong as its previous season premieres. The third-season bow averaged a 4.1 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., easily finishing as the night’s No. 1 show. That was, as expected, well down from the season two premiere, which aired behind the Super Bowl in February and averaged a 16.3. The show’s April 2011 series debut averaged a 5.1.

The new ABC talk show generated a 2.8 household rating and 8 share in the overnights, tying Rachael Ray in 2006 as the highest-rated debut in a decade. In the other talk premieres yesterday, CBS’s Jeff Probst was up 40% from its year-ago time slot average in the women 25-54 demo, while Twentieth’s Ricki was plagued by the Cablevision-Tribune retrans fight that kept it off 40% of the homes in New York.

Ratings for day one of Katie Couric’s new daytime talk show, Katie, won’t be out until later today, but already the new syndicated season is off to a strong start. The Steve Harvey Show and the revamped Live with Kelly and Michael both did very well the week ended Sept. 9.

Peyton Manning’s highly anticipated debut with the Denver Broncos last night lifted NBC’s Sunday Night Football to a series high. The game, which the Broncos won 31-19 over the Pittsburgh Steelers, became the highest-rated regular-season primetime NFL game in network history, jumping 7% over last year’s season opener. SNF averaged an 18.0 household rating from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m., according to Nielsen metered markets.

The NFL opener between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants averaged a 16.5 household rating, according to Nielsen’s metered markets, tying for the fifth-best metered-market rating ever for a regular-season primetime game on NBC. At 10 p.m., ABC and CBS tied for third at 0.9, each for Democratic National Convention coverage. They were both up from Tuesday’s first-night coverage.

Fox’s MasterChef is hot stuff. The Gordon Ramsay cooking competition surged to a season high last night, and it even topped NBC’s competing America’s Got Talent as the No. 1 show of the night. MasterChef averaged a 2.8 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m., up 17% over the previous week. That boosted Fox to No. 1 on a relatively quiet night for broadcast.

Thanks to the London Olympic games, the Big Four are up 13%, to a 6.8 in adults 18-49, a 13% improvement over last year.

Thanks to the Olympics on NBC, overall broadcast ratings are up for the second time in the past three summers.The Big Four networks have averaged a 6.8 adults 18-49 rating this summer, according to Nielsen data analyzed by Turner Networks, 13% better than last summer.

Without the competition and preemptions from the London Games, many shows turned in strong ratings gains in the week ending Aug. 19.

Fox had another strong night for its Gordon Ramsay reality shows. Both Hell’s Kitchen and Hotel Hell hit season highs last night, leading the network to an easy victory in primetime. Kitchen was the night’s top show with a 3.0 at 9 p.m., up 15% over last week. Hotel averaged a 2.3, a series best for the three-week-old show and up 15% over last week.

Preseason football remains a strong draw on broadcast, where NBC cruised to an easy victory last night with a Sunday Night Football contest. The game between the Carolina Panthers and New York Jets lifted the network to a 2.5 adults 18-49 rating and 7 share in primetime. That was well ahead of the No. 2 network in primetime, Fox, with a 1.8/5.

Big Brother led CBS to a comfortable victory last night on another slow summer Thursday.  Brother averaged a 2.2 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m., finishing as the highest-rated show of the night. CBS also had the night’s second-highest-rated show, a rerun of The Big Bang Theory, which averaged a 2.1 at 8 p.m.

Summertime ratings have an easy winner so far — an Olympics-heavy NBC. But looking deeper — sans the high-rated Olympics programming — all broadcast networks and most cable networks have shown slippage.

NBC made it two nights in a row last night: Two nights of having the evening’s No. 1 show and two nights of finishing first in primetime. America’s Got Talent averaged a 2.3 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m., finishing three-tenths ahead of the night’s No. 2 show, CBS’s Big Brother.

America’s Got Talent maintained its position as the No. 1 show on Tuesday night, if just barely. Talent averaged a 2.5 adults 18-49 rating last night from 8 to 10 p.m., down 11% from the previous week. It finished just a tenth ahead of Fox’s MasterChef, which averaged a 2.4 at 9 p.m. But since Talent lasted two hours, and the rest of the networks were littered with reruns, it was enough to lift NBC to No. 1 for the night, a hair ahead of Fox.

The reality show, which was heavily advertised during the Olympics, saw its rating plummet in its second outing last night. Stripes averaged a 1.1 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m., falling 36% from last week’s debut. NBC’s other new show last night, Grimm, saw its rating decline with a weaker lead-in.

The NBC morning show falls behind rival Good Morning America after two dominant weeks during the Games, a reflection of ABC’s rising strength.

A preseason NFL game lifted NBC to an easy victory last night. The network averaged a 2.6 adults 18-49 rating and 8 share in primetime, nearly double the evening’s No. 2 finisher, Fox, which drew a 1.4/4. It marked the third time in the past four nights that preseason football has lifted a network to first place.

Without the Olympics airing on competing NBC, CBS’s Big Brother saw its rating rise last night. Brother averaged a 2.1 adults 18-49 rating at 8 p.m., up 11% from the previous week. It marked Brother‘s highest-rated episode since before the Olympics started on July 27.

NBC’s America’s Got Talent was no worse for wear after a three-week layoff. The summer’s No. 1 show returned from its Olympic hiatus last night as the No. 1 show in primetime, matching the rating from its most recent episode last month. Talent averaged a 2.7 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., also matching its best rating on any night of the week since July 10.

Either competing against, or preempted by, the games, the rest of TV didn’t stand a chance against the first week of the London extravaganza.

During the Olympics NBC had an ideal platform to advertise last night’s debut of the new series Stars Earn Stripes. But it was another network’s bow last night that became the highest-rated new show of the season. Fox’s Hotel Hell, the latest in its series of Gordon Ramsay reality programs, averaged a 1.9 adults 18-49 rating at 8 p.m., the best for any new show this summer.