>Oprah Winfrey broke a cardinal rule of the Nielsen ratings game by appealing directly to Nielsen sample members to watch her struggling network.  As reported in the New York Times and elsewhere, Oprah tweeted Sunday night “Every 1 who can please turn to OWN especially if u have a Neilsen box” as she wrote about […]

> RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES pulled in around $1.25M in its Thursday midnight screenings.  This is better than the $800K that Cowboys & Aliens managed last week, but dwarfed by the $4M Captain America earned and Thor‘s $3.3M.  (Let’s not even talk about Harry Potter.)  This supports Mitch Metcalf’s prediction that Apes […]

  CW has clarified that the May 13 episode of its rebooted 90210 will be its series finale, not just the end of its 5th season.  Although CW likes to give its veteran shows a farewell lap on the way out (as Gossip Girl had earlier this season), 90210 earned its abrupt exit with ratings […]

  PIXELS (Columbia/Sony) was marketed on its high concept rather than as an Adam Sandler star vehicle, perhaps reflecting not just Sandler’s dwindling value, but the shuttering of his long-term acting relationship with the studio as he moves to Netflix.  The result was better than some of Sandler’s recent flops, but far from exciting:  according […]

The ratings below are household ratings from the 56 television markets with local Nielsen meters for Saturday August 29 and Sunday August 30, 2015. The 56 markets (out of 210 total) cover about 70% of the US television population. Click here for a look at sports ratings from the same calendar weekend last year. Football […]

  Apart from a few marginal increases, it was another dull night of May sweeps for the networks. NBC:  A 3.6 rating is obviously nothing for a network to complain about.  But last night’s THE VOICE was nevertheless its lowest rated episode of the Spring cycle so far.  After that, per Mitch Metcalf:  “GRIMM scored a […]

        NETWORK FINALS:  MASTERCHEF gained 0.1 and the season finale of THE F WORD lost the same in final numbers.  In addition, SALVATION was rated as a 2-hour, and emerged at 0.4.           Broadcast Official Nationals Program Ratings Chart     CABLE HIGHLIGHTS:  Bravo notched a narrow win […]

      HOLIDAY DELAYS: The next cable and broadcast nationals post will be on Monday July 8 (ratings for Wednesday July 3). The rest of the schedule for next week will be posted separately soon.  Happy Independence Day!     NETWORK FINALS:  BIG BROTHER gained 0.1 in final numbers and the rerun of THE FLASH […]