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August 30, 2011
 

THE SKED: Summer Broadcast Ratings Update August 22-28

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Written by: Mitch Salem
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>The broadcast week just concluded (August 22-28) was all about NFL preseason football again.  FOX did not have any games this week and has lost MasterChef, dropping the network’s weekly average to around a 1.2 — down from a 1.8 the last two weeks.  In contrast, NBC rose to almost a 1.8 for the week thanks to a solid Sunday Night Football game featuring New Orleans at Oakland.  This is NBC’s best weekly performance since the third week of June.  CBS, with two NFL games on lower-rated Friday and Saturday nights, averaged almost a 1.7 for the week.

Estimated Non-Official Weekly Network Averages
               Adult 18-49 rating

Week of     ABC   CBS   NBC   FOX   CW
June 13     1.2   1.1   2.0   1.6   0.3
June 20     1.3   1.1   1.8   1.4   0.3
June 27     1.3   1.0   1.6   1.2   0.3
July 4      1.4   1.2   1.6   1.3   0.3
July 11     1.3   1.3   1.4   1.7   0.3
July 18     1.3   1.4   1.3   1.5   0.3
July 25     1.3   1.3   1.3   1.6   0.3
Aug  1      1.4   1.3   1.2   1.4   0.3
Aug  8      1.35  1.45  1.22  1.80  0.3
Aug  15     1.28  1.41  1.64  1.81  0.3

Aug  22     1.45  1.67  1.77  1.17  0.3

Look for a very soft week this week (the lead-up to sleepy Labor Day), while ratings should start to rise slowly the first few weeks of September as HUTs (Homes Using Television) start to bounce back from summer lows and build solidly leading up to Premiere Week (the week of September 18).  Speaking of Premiere Week, ShowBuzzDaily will cover the daily roll-out of new shows, and we will compare our ratings predictions from back in May to the verdicts delivered by the only jury that counts: the 10,000 homes in the national Nielsen sample. 

The second chart below lists the hit network shows by night (those programs at or near a 2.0 Adult 18-49 rating or higher). 

Top Network Shows (Adult 18-49 rating 2.0+)
Week of August 22-28

Mon: FOX Hell’s Kitchen 2.6 (8-10 pm)
     ABC Bachelor Pad 1.9
Tue: NBC America’s Got Talent 3.3
     ABC Wipeout 2.0 
Wed: NBC America’s Got Talent 2.9 
     CBS Big Brother 2.9 
Thu: CBS Big Brother 3.1 
     CBS Big Bang Theory R 1.9 
Fri: CBS NFL Preseason GB-DAL 2.0
Sun: CBS Big Brother 2.9
     NBC NFL Preseason SD-DAL 3.2


About the Author

Mitch Salem
MITCH SALEM has worked on the business side of the entertainment industry for 20 years, as a senior business affairs executive and attorney for such companies as NBC, ABC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, and BermanBraun Productions, and before that, at the NY law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. During all that, he has more or less constantly been going to the movies and watching TV, and writing about both since the 1980s. His film reviews also currently appear on screened.com and the-burg.com. In addition, he is co-writer of an episode of the television series "Felicity."