Sunday Night in America - 2 November 2008 (US)

Here's another look at the American Broadcast Network ratings, specifically looking at the viewer turnout in the 18-49 segment.

As you can see from the chart - the biggest turnout in younger viewers was for The Simpsons, for this year's Treehouse of Horror special. Also scoring well was NFL on both Fox & NBC and Desperate Housewives on ABC.

Typically (as we'll see with these charts) while CBS pulls the best overall figures it lingers behind with it's older skewing fare. It was always thus for the Tiffany Network, even back to the days when their Sunday Nights were 60 Minutes, Murder She Wrote and a Hallmark Movie, they go old and for it they are rewarded handsomely in total viewers, just not many of them under 50...

Viewers stuck in the outdoor room - Sunday 2 November 2008

A reprieve for the Outdoor Room? Anything is possible and the fate of Jamie Duries’ Big New Show™ looks a little healthier after it nudged a million last night – but still this is Seven and such a low figure for what does not look to be a cheap show, whilst a very cheap show (20 to 01) knocks it out doesn’t make for a good look, especially when compared to other hits on Seven coupled with the fact that they already seem to have a plan for 6.30 Sundays next year.

Ten can be happy they managed two shows over 1 mill last night (that’s as many as they got for the whole of last week) and improved ratings for the NCIS rerun.

Overall it was another low rating night (though not the dead zone that Saturday was) with a slightly lower turnout than last week although everything more or less held it’s place from the week before without much variation.

Perhaps viewers are getting the jump on the networks and starting summer non-ratings a month early.

It will be interesting to see what happens tonight when Seven switch from Border Security/The Force to The Rich List and what the knock on effect will be for the City Homicide vs CSI battle.

Watch this space.

Television's Ice Age - Saturday 1 November 2008

Last night we got a real patchwork, Seven and Nine went local last night to accomodate their broadcasts of Rugby (both the union and league varieties) and the face that people south of the Murray couldn't care less.

It's difficult to make sense of and I'm not even going to try except to say that nothing was particularly impressive ratings wise last night - Funniest Home Videos and Ice Age 2 both scored well, but their numbers were depressed in these spring months.

The loss of viewers this year has been even more acute than last year as people find something better to do than sport or repeats on a Saturday. With both Football matches pulling lacklustre figures even in their home markets, what does this mean for the future of sporting rights in Australia.

Surely they can't keep bidding up the price of these spectacles when the result is a diminishing return.

Friday Nights the address is CBS - Friday 31 October 2008 (US)

As you can see from the chart below - American programmers haven't given up on Fridays to the extent that Australian nets have but when a rerun of NCIS stomps on new programming everywhere else - you have to wonder how long before Fridays in America go the way of Saturdays.

The CW got viewing figures which would be decent for a cable channel, not a national network with a free to air affiliate in almost all markets.

Meanwhile what's with the performance of Wife Swap? If the US versions of Deal or No Deal and 5th Grader are half as crap as their Australian counterparts than I pity the fools tuning into these at the expense of what is one of the few genuinely funny reality programs on the dial.

Across the Pacific - Thursday 30 October 2008

Well here's something different - I've decided to take a look at US Ratings and how shows are doing in their home market, and because it's the most recently available data, we'll start with Thursday night.

It's obviously been more than a year since I looked at US ratings because last time I noticed Grey's Anatomy and CSI were neck and neck, and My Name is Earl was a lot more popular.

Grey's Anatomy seemed to take a big hit in 2007-08, this was the writers strike season but it's numbers dropped from 19 million to 16 million and it doesn't look to have recovered, buy contrast CSI held steady through the strike and still to this day.

Even more disturbing is My Name is Earl - the arse (ass) has well and truly fallen out of that show, it's not like the competition is that intense, but when The CW is chasing you down you know you've got problems.

The show has had a steady slide after a great first year in a 9pm timeslot, moving to 8pm certainly hasn't agreed with the show shedding over 30% of it's audience since the move.

The night's lowest rated show was Supernatural, which does however record good numbers of 18-49 year old viewers, similarly the younger set have ensured a full season pickup for Kath & Kim less than a fortnight after Seven unceremoniously dumped the show here in Australia