ratings

CBS’s Big Brother has given the network a big lift on Sunday nights. CBS won last night among adults 18-49 with Brother easily the evening’s highest-rated show, on an evening dominated by repeats. Brother averaged a 2.4 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m., down 4% from last week’s Sunday debut but 33 percent ahead of the evening’s No. 2 show, Fox’s Family Guy repeat with a 1.8.

Blame it on the beautiful weather or the lack of big events on TV last night. For whatever reason, TV usage was off 6% from the previous week, and that led to a dip in ratings for nearly every original English-language broadcast show. CBS won the night with a 1.6 adults 18-49 rating and 6 share, with ABC close behind at 1.5/5. But both broadcasters’ biggest hits declined from the previous week.

Wednesdays are a lot more competitive with CBS’s Big Brother now in the mix. CBS and NBC tied for first last night, and Fox was just a tenth of a point behind, as the long-running CBS reality show made its Wednesday debut. NBC and CBS both averaged a 1.9 adults 18-49 rating and a 6 share in primetime, while Fox drew a 1.8/6.

Wimbledon preemptions and vacationing viewers resulted in sinking PUT levels in the week ending July 3. Many shows were down or flat. One beneficiary was Maury, which emerged as the week’s top-rated talk show.

Scott Pelley’s third-place newscast reached an average of 5.55 million viewers during his first five weeks in the anchor chair, an increase of 7% over the same five weeks in 2010 when Katie Couric was the anchor. But the other two broadcast network comptitors also post year-to-year gains in the July 4-10 week.

A week after NBC snapped its 12-week Monday night winning streak, ABC started a new one. The network got an easy win last night with its reality lineup of The Bachelorette and Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition, two of the night’s three highest-rated shows. ABC averaged a 2.3 adults 18-49 rating and 7 share in primetime, 35% ahead of No. 2 Fox at 1.7/5.

All ABC’s promotion paid off for Diane Sawyer’s exclusive interview with Jaycee Dugard, the kidnapping victim who was held for 18 years and bore her captor two children. The special two-hour edition of Primetime last night drew the network’s best numbers for any show since the NBA finals last month. Primetime averaged a 3.7 adults 18-49 rating from 9 to 11 p.m., easily the night’s most-watched show.

Two teams that have been in the news for the wrong reasons — the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are now in bankruptcy court, and the financially distressed New York Mets — have seen two of the biggest drops in MLB’s local TV ratings so far this season. Both major-market teams have faced high-profile ownership controversies that appear to be affecting local viewer interest this season. The Mets’ local ratings are down 29% from midseason last year; the Dodgers’ ratings are down 27%.

Just call it lucky 13 for CBS’s Big Brother. The 13th season premiere of the reality show was up 13 percent over last year, boosting the network to its first nightly win in months. Brother averaged a 2.7 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m., growing from a 2.4 for last season’s debut and becoming the night’s No. 1 show. That boosted CBS to a close win over ABC, the only network with original programming in all three hours.

Discovery en Espanol, the Spanish-language branch of the Discovery Channel, has increased across all demographic segments, maintaining its two-and-a-half year run as the runner-up in primetime Spanish-language cable networks.

In its second week, NBC’s new dating show Love in the Wild saw ratings decline versus its debut, but it still easily won its timeslot. Love averaged a 1.9 adults 18-49 rating at 10 p.m., down 14% from last week, when it premiered to a 2.2.

Twelve of the 25 most popular primetime programs last week were reruns of scripted dramas or comedies on CBS. CBS’s one other entry in Nielsen’s top 25 was the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which usually airs recycled material in the summer.

Nielsen said 4.58 million people were watching HLN between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. ET Tuesday. That’s the largest audience that HLN has gathered since it began in 1982 as CNN Headline News.

The CBS Television Distribution talk show led the genre again in the week ending June 26. Other gab fests to post week-to-week gains include Dr. Oz and Rachael Ray. Game shows also turned in some gains.

Goodbye to The Voice, hello to a season (and nearly series) high for America’s Got Talent. NBC’s talent competition scored its best rating since the 2006 premiere last night, averaging a 4.5 adults 18-49 rating for the 9 to 11 p.m. episode, just 0.1 behind its series record.

NBC’s Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular jumped to a four-year high to lead the network to a dominating win on a slow holiday night. The 9 p.m. show averaged a 2.1 adults 18-49 rating, up 50% over last year, when the broadcast aired on a Sunday, and marking its highest rating since 2007. The show also drew its biggest total audience in 11 years, averaging 8.6 million total viewers.

As the 4th of July weekend nears, viewers went on early vacation mode on Thursday night. ABC topped the ratings in the ad-preferred adults 18-49 demographic, helped by the highest-rated program, Wipeout (6.5 million, 1.9). The reality series beat out Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance results show (5 million, 1.6) in the time period — though all of Thursday’s original programs were down.

Jon Stewart has unseated Jay Leno to take the late-night ratings crown in the all-important 18-49 demographic for the just ended second quarter. It is the first time in 10 years — or 40 consecutive quarters — that NBC’s The Tonight Show has not won the quarterly demo ratings race.

It seems the final singing performances were more of a draw than crowning the actual winner of the first season of NBC’s The Voice. The show drew a decent rating for last night’s finale, but it was well off from Tuesday night, when the contestants gave their final performances. Voice averaged a 3.5 adults 18-49 rating, down 19% from a 4.3 for Tuesday’s penultimate episode. And it wasn’t the highest-rated show of the night; that honor belonged to America’s Got Talent, which aired at 9 p.m. and drew a 4.0.

The Voice drew a big audience for its penultimate episode last night, lifting NBC to a dominant victory in primetime. Voice averaged a 4.3 adults 18-49 rating from 9 to 11 p.m., even to last week and easily the night’s top-rated show. Among total viewers the show drew 12.5 million, its best audience since May 31.

The Royal Wedding, the killing of Osama bin Laden and Japan’s near-nuclear meltdown drove TV viewers to do the almost unthinkable: watch the evening news. After years of sinking ratings, the network evening broadcasts added viewers in the second quarter — the first time in a decade that all three posted a quarterly year-over-year audience gain. NBC, ABC and CBS combined added some 1.9 million evening news viewers in the quarter, for a total of 21.7 million viewers.

Added to the start of vacation season were preemptions for sports and scandal, all of which depressed Dr. Phil, which shared the talk crown with Live and Maury in the week ending June 19.

Mondays continue to belong to ABC, and last night both its reality shows were up over the previous week. The network won its 12th straight Monday night, dating back to the regular season, and giving it its longest Monday streak since 1991. ABC averaged a 2.4 adults 18-49 rating and 7 share, 50% ahead of No. 2 Fox at 1.6/5.

NBC’s The Marriage Ref returned to lower ratings last night, albeit on a slow Sunday where it still ranked as the No. 2 program of the night. Ref averaged a 1.6 adults 18-49 rating in its second-season premiere, well down from a 4.9 for its premiere in March 2010, when it debuted behind the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics.

ABC is now the network to beat on Thursday night. With a solid premiere for the new show Expedition Impossible, the network earned an easy victory over No. 2 Fox last night, averaging a 2.1 adults 18-49 rating and 6 share in primetime. Impossible averaged a 2.3 at 9 p.m., tying with lead-in Wipeout as the night’s top show. And the new adventure program from Mark Burnett held 100% of Wipeout‘s lead-in, always a good sign for a debut.

President Obama’s 15-minute address to the nation at 8 p.m. yesterday made for a rather confusing night ratings-wise for the networks. That pushed back the start time for NBC’s The Voice and Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance, two of the summer’s highest-rated shows, and muddled the Nielsen picture, as fast nationals measure half-hour timeslots and cannot break out ratings for 15-minute increments. Nonetheless, one thing remained clear: NBC was an easy winner on the evening with a 3.3/10 adults 18-49 rating.

A better timeslot, and less competition, gave Donald Trump’s Miss USA beauty pageant a nice kick in the ratings last night. Miss USA averaged a 2.2 adults 18-49 rating from 9 to 11 p.m., up 57% from last year’s 1.4, when the pageant ran during the regular TV season against such tough competition as CBS’s Survivor finale and ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance faced less competition last night with the NBA finals over, but ratings for the year’s first results show still dipped from last week. Dance averaged a 2.1 among adults 18-49 from 8 to 9 p.m., off 16% from last week, when the long-running reality show faced the NBA finals on ABC.

Both the Boston Bruins and NBC scored big last night with game seven of the Stanley Cup finals. The network averaged a 5.7 household rating, tying a 2003 contest between the Anaheim Ducks and New Jersey Devils for the best game seven rating in NHL history, as the Bruins posted a 4-0 victory over the Vancouver Canucks to claim the Stanley Cup title.

On Tuesday nights there is NBC and there is everyone else. The network earned another dominant victory last night with the combination of America’s Got Talent and The Voice, by far the top two shows of the summer. NBC averaged a 4.1 adults 18-49 rating and 12 share, more than double the night’s No. 2 network, Fox, with a 1.5/5.

CBS, the strongest TV network in terms of overall viewers, said it had gained the most time-shifted viewers for the 2010-2011 season. CBS grew 10.1% or 1.18 million primetime viewers in time-shifted viewing after seven days, according to Nielsen. CBS led all networks last year with 11.67 million viewers for live-plus-same-day rating data.

Nielsen said the Mavericks’ series victory over the Miami Heat was seen by an average of 17.3 million people over the six games. The fourth, fifth and sixth games of the Heat-Mavericks series eclipsed those corresponding games last year despite the presence of the NBA’s most storied franchises. Many tuned in this year to see if LeBron James would win his first championship after his much-maligned decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers.

After Oprah and the May sweeps end in the week ending June 5, the good doctor emerges as the genre’s No. 1. Overall, however, Judge Judy is still the overall syndie leader with a 3% weekly gain.

ABC ran its Monday win streak to 10 straight, dating back to the regular season, on the strength of two reality shows. ABC averaged a 2.2 adults 18-49 rating and 6 share in primetime, down 12% from last week but 16% ahead of No. 2 NBC with a 1.9/5 for the Stanley Cup finals.

CBS introduced Scott Pelley as the new anchor of its evening news with no fanfare last week, and the result was no new fans. The numbers for Pelley’s first week showed no growth from the audience that Katie Couric had been averaging for her last month on the air, and were actually down slightly from what CBS had scored with Harry Smith serving as the substitute anchor.