ratings

Al Gore’s Current TV has bigger problems to deal with than a lawsuit from fired news anchor Keith Olbermann — namely not getting kicked off Time Warner Cable for low ratings.

CBS and Fox split the night with respective wins among viewers and the demo, while ABC’s new Shonda Rhimes drama gets numbers familiar to its timeslot.

The showdown this week between the Today show and Good Morning America tilted in ABC’s favor for the first time on Wednesday, when GMA beat its NBC rival in the ratings by 87,000 viewers.

The series finale of One Tree Hill gave the CW a lift last night. The show, which aired from 8 to 10 p.m., averaged a 1.4 among the network’s target women 18-34, the CW’s best Wednesday rating since February of last year. It also matched the network’s season highs among adults 18-34 (0.9), 18-49s (0.8) and women 18-49 (1.1).

Local ratings in the markets of the schools in the NCAA semi-finals were huge. In fact, in Louisville, they topped those of the Super Bowl.

The Voice topped the competition on a new night yesterday. The singing show, airing its first Tuesday results show of the season, was the No. 1 program on a slow night and clearly had an impact on the competition, with ABC’s Dancing with the Stars Results and Fox’s New Girl both sliding from last week. Voice averaged a 3.2 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m., with Stars drawing a 2.7 in the same one-hour timeslot, down 13% from last week’s 3.1 in its season premiere. Stars was the night’s No. 2 show.

Besides scoring with March Madness and other special programming last week, the network had a monopoly on dramas and sitcoms in the top 10, including NCIS and The Big Bang Theory.

More March Madness preemptions and nice weather conspired again to keep syndication viewing down in the week ending March 25. The biggest gainer from the prior session was The Insider.

Both ABC’s Dancing with the Stars and NBC’s The Voice slid to season lows last night, but that was hardly a surprise. They faced the NCAA men’s basketball tournament title game on CBS, which was up versus last year, based on early numbers. Kentucky beat Kansas 67-59. Voice averaged a 4.1 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., down 9% from last week, while Stars fell 13%, to 2.8, in the same timeslot.

The Academy of Country Music Awards led CBS to an easy first-place finish last night, despite the fact that it dipped slightly from last year’s ceremony. The ACMs averaged a 3.1 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 11 p.m., off 6% from a 3.3 last year. But that was still easily the night’s top-rated program, with the No. 2 show, ABC’s Once Upon A Time, managing a 2.7. It was a rather slow evening otherwise on broadcast.

Saturday’s national semifinals pitting four powerhouse programs earned a 9.0 overnight rating and a 17 share, an increase of 1% over last season’s Final Four, which featured upstarts Butler and VCU along with Kentucky and eventual national champion Connecticut.

With around eight weeks left of the 2011-12 television season, Fox is still leading the pack — but in a much narrower race than a year ago. Through March 25, 27 weeks of the season, Fox is at a Nielsen average 3.3 live-plus-same-day rating among 18- to-49-year-old viewers, down 7% from the same time frame a year ago.

CBS’s The Big Bang Theory has overtaken Fox’s American Idol as the top show on Thursday night, but Fox still has a slight edge over its rival on the night. Fox finished first on Thursday for the 11th straight week with a 3.5 adults 18-49 rating and 10 share, just ahead of CBS at 3.2/9. But CBS had the top show, Big Bang, which averaged a 4.5 at 8 p.m. and beat Idol by a sizeable margin in their shared half hour, 22%. Bang had been in reruns for the past few weeks.

It was another quiet night for broadcast, with ABC and CBS airing mostly repeats, which meant little challenge to usually dominant Fox on the night. Fox finished first for the evening with a 5.0 adults 18-49 rating and 14 share, bettering the other Big 4 networks combined. Fox’s American Idol was up very slightly versus last week, from a 4.9 to a 5.0, though it’s still lagging well behind last year’s numbers.

ABC got a big lift from last night’s return of Dancing with the Stars Results, which was up slightly over last fall’s debut. The network placed second to CBS on the night paced by Stars‘ 3.0 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m. That was up from a 2.9 for its premiere last fall, though it was down sharply from a 4.3 for last spring’s debut.

Ratings for shows across all genres took a tumble in the week ending March 18, hurt by March Madness preemptions and more sunlight.

With CBS in repeats last night NBC easily earned its seventh Monday win in the past eight weeks, led by The Voice. The network averaged a 3.7 adults 18-49 rating and 10 share in primetime, 28% ahead of No. 2 ABC at 2.9/8. For the second straight week, Voice and Dancing split their shared timeslot. Voice was the victor in 18-49s, with a 4.2, down 4% from last week but still easily the night’s top show.

College basketball once again gave CBS a slight edge over ABC on Sunday night. Overrun from the Kansas-North Carolina game, which lasted until 7:19 p.m. last night, boosted CBS to a 2.3 adults 18-49 rating and 6 share, just ahead of ABC’s 2.2/6. The basketball overrun and the start of 60 Minutes from 7 to 7:30 p.m. were the night’s top program, averaging a 3.5.

It was a night of mixed results for Fox. The network’s hit reality show American Idol slid to a season low last night, but the new show Touch, which aired behind Idol, did well in its first episode since a January sneak peek. Idol averaged a 4.0 in adults 18-49 at 8 p.m., its lowest-rated episode this season and in fact its lowest rating since season one, when the show aired in the summer. Idol was off 13% from last week.

NBC’s new comedy Bent had a rough first night. The show bowed to disastrously low ratings, becoming the lowest-rated new scripted series this season. Bent averaged a 1.0 in adults 18-49 in its first episode at 9 p.m. and a 0.9 for the second episode, which aired at 9:30. It lost 29% of the 1.4 for lead-in Are You There, Chelsea?, another comedy, which was up sharply over last week along with fellow NBC sitcom Whitney.

When CBS is in originals on Tuesday night, as it was last night, it’s a tough network to beat, especially when so many shows had lackluster ratings. CBS averaged a 2.7 adults 18-49 rating and 8 share in primetime, 29% ahead of second-place NBC, which averaged a 2.1/6. CBS’s NCIS was the night’s top show with a 3.3, and in fact it was the only show to break the 3.0 mark. CBS also had the night’s No. 2 show, NCIS: Los Angeles, which drew a 2.8.

Last Thursday’s premiere of the network drama Missing, starring Judd as a former CIA agent trying to find a teenage son who disappeared in Rome, landed among the 10 most popular series last week with 10.6 million viewers. The strong sampling came despite Missing competing directly with Fox’s American Idol.

Mondays are now the most competitive night of the week with the addition of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, which led to some interesting results last night. Airing against NBC’s hit The Voice for the first time this season, Dancing bowed to its lowest premiere rating ever. But it may have hurt its competitor a bit too. Voice slid to a season low last night in the shows’ shared 8 to 10 p.m. timeslot.

The network will use Rentrak’s TV Essentials census-based TV ratings service.

NEW YORK (AP) — Television viewers can’t get enough of those zombies. The Nielsen ratings company said Monday that 9 million people watched the season finale of “Walking Dead” on […]

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament boosted CBS past ABC Sunday night, though just barely. Runover from the tourney helped the network to a 2.3 adults 18-49 rating and 6 share, just ahead of ABC’s 2.2/6. It also pushed CBS’s shows’ start times back a bit, which means that the overnight measurements aren’t completely accurate.

Last year’s strong ratings for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament were no fluke. Ratings are up again this year, the second since the tourney expanded from CBS to include coverage on three cable networks, proving that last year’s ratings uptick wasn’t simply a reflection of the expanded coverage. Through the first three nights of the tourney, Thursday through Saturday, viewership is up 3% over last year, to 8 million, according to Nielsen, across CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV.

ABC’s new drama Missing had a so-so premiere last night against college basketball, which undoubtedly drew many viewers to cable. Missing averaged a 2.0 adults 18-49 rating, third in the 8 p.m. timeslot behind Fox’s American Idol and NBC’s “Community” and 30 Rock. It also drew a respectable 10.6 million total viewers, ABC’s best audience in the timeslot in more than a year.

Daylight saving time seems to be sapping the networks’ lineups this week. Fox won another slow night yesterday, with most shows seeing declines versus their most recent original episodes, including top-rated American Idol. Idol averaged a 5.3 adults 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 p.m., down 7% from last week’s 5.7. The show peaked with a 5.8 in its final half hour.

Nielsen says a recent study adds to the growing evidence showing there is now a direct connection between social media buzz and traditional TV ratings. In looking at a two-week period prior to a particular TV show finale, Nielsen says a 14% increase in social media buzz translated into a 1% rise in traditional TV ratings among viewers 18-34.

Person of Interest, the J.J. Abrams crime-fighting thriller that was one of the most anticipated new shows of the season, hit a series high with 15.7 million viewers last week. The Thursday night series has been doing particularly well in the past couple of months, making it likely CBS has a new franchise for several years to come. In addition, The fairytale Once Upon a Time was ABC’s most-watched show for the second time this season.

On a night when no network did all that well, NBC’s new reality show Fashion Star got off to a pretty bland start. Star averaged a 1.6 adults 18-49 rating from 9:30 to 11 p.m., losing 20% of lead-in The Biggest Loser‘s 2.0 rating. Star did finish first at 10 p.m. with a 1.6 but it did so against limp competition.

Univision long ago passed the CW to become the No. 5 broadcast network. It looks as though Telemundo, the No. 2 Spanish-language network behind Univision, expects to do the same some day. Telemundo has positioned itself as a rival to the young-skewing CW as its ratings grow, and it’s occasionally even beating its English-language competitor.

ABC’s GCB got off to a so-so start last week, but last night it showed a bit of growth. The second episode of the new drama averaged a 2.3 adults 18-49 rating in its 10 p.m. timeslot, up 5% from the 2.2 the series premiere averaged last week. The show finished first in its timeslot, just edging out the 2.2 NBC averaged for the second half of Celebrity Apprentice and the 2.1 CBS averaged for CSI: Miami. Last week GCB finished second in the slot behind Apprentice.

Thursday nights have turned into a two-horse race for viewers 18-49. Fox, boosted by its top show American Idol, and CBS, lifted by its top comedy The Big Bang Theory, tied for first for the night among viewers 18-49, each with a 3.6 average rating and a 10 share. Bang was the night’s top show in the demo, averaging a 5.1 from 8 to 8:30 p.m. and beating out the 4.5 Idol posted in their shared half hour.