Extra 'Extreme' Gives ABC Sunday Win
January 26, 2009 12:27 PM
ABC's Sunday-night lineup, led by a special two-hour presentation of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," beat the other broadcast networks on a night that included two original made-for-TV movies, CBS' "Loving Leah" and NBC's "The Last Templar."
"America's Funniest Home Videos" matched its previous season high and "Extreme Makeover" posted a new season high, finishing the night as the No. 1 show in the adults 18-49 demographic, according to preliminary Nielsen Media Research numbers. A repeat of "Desperate Housewives" logged the highest rating for an encore episode since March 2007, after last week's 100th episode scored the lowest rating in the show's history. ABC finished the night with a 3.3 rating/8 share and 9.6 million average viewers, taking the top slot in each half-hour throughout the night.
CBS premiered the Hallmark Hall of Fame film "Loving Leah" to a 2.2/5 and 11.7 million viewers. Although it performed slightly lower than NBC's "Templar" (2.3/6, 9.8 million) in head-to-head competition, "Leah" drew a larger audience in total viewers. "Leah" also increased its rating from first half-hour to last (1.9 to 2.3) while "Templar" dropped from start to finish (2.6 to 2.1). Compared with the network's last Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, "Front of the Class," from December, "Leah" was down 21%.
New episodes of "60 Minutes" and "Cold Case," which posted its largest audience since November 2007, gave CBS an overall second-place finish for the night with a 2.3/6 and 12.7 million viewers.
NBC aired a two-hour "Dateline" before "Templar," which airs its second part tonight at 9 p.m. Both telecasts, however, increased the network's non-sports performance in their respective time periods compared with last season in both the demographic and total viewers. Overall NBC finished fourth in adults 18-49 and third in total viewers (2.1/5, 8.5 million).
Fox finished third in the demographic and fourth in total viewers (2.2/5, 4.9 million).
The CW finished fifth with a 0.3/1 and 0.7 million viewers, also posting a
0.3 rating among women 18-34.
Prime Time Preliminary Sunday Ratings
|
7 |
7:30 | 8 |
8:30 |
9 |
9:30 |
10 |
10:30 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
3.3 / 8 |
America's Funniest Home Videos2.6 / 7 8.6 mil |
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition4.0 / 10 11.6 mil |
Desperate Housewives2.5 / 6 6.6 mil |
|||||
2.3 / 6 |
60 Minutes2.4 / 7 14.2 mil |
Cold Case2.6 / 6 13.3 mil |
Hallmark Hall of Fame Movie: Loving Leah2.2 / 5 11.7 mil |
|||||
2.2 / 5 |
Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?1.1 / 3 3.2 mil |
The Simpsons2.7 / 7 5.7 mil |
The Simpsons2.5 / 6 5.3 mil |
Family Guy3.1 / 7 6.4 mil |
American Dad2.7 / 6 5.7 mil |
No Programming |
||
2.1 / 5 |
Dateline1.9 / 5 7.1 mil |
Movie: The Last Templar, Part 12.3 / 6 9.8 mil |
||||||
0.4 / 1 |
Jericho0.2 / 1 0.6 mil |
Movie: Antitrust0.3 / 1 0.8 mil |
No Programming |
|||||
Source: Nielsen Media Research
*Ratings are specified in the 18-to 49-year-old demographic and viewership in P2+.
A note about ratings: Ratings are expressed as percentages of Nielsen's estimated 114.5 million U.S. television households. The first number, the rating, is a percentage of households tuned into a specific program at a specific time.
The second number, the share, is a percentage of households with televisions in use tuned into that same program. For example, if a show obtains a 10.2/16, this means that 10.2% of all U.S. households tuned into the program at some point during the broadcast. Meanwhile, 16% of all households watching television during the time period viewed the program at some point. Ratings are broken down further by demographic, as networks sell advertising time based on the makeup of the audience.
