Oscar proved golden for newsmagazines at this year’s Academy Awards as ratings spiked across the board for the daily shows, according to Nielsen Media Research for the week ending April 1. Meanwhile, one long-running talk show staple hit its lowest rating in at least 13 years.
The Academy Awards telecast on March 25 may not have scored big on the ratings meters, but the aftershocks jolted the newsmagazines the next day. All four magazines covering the event were up for the week, with three of them growing by double-digit numbers.
Paramount Domestic Television’s “Entertainment Tonight” led the pack with a 16 percent rise to a 6.6 household rating for the week, thanks largely to a season-best score of 7.8 on Monday. Among women 18 to 34, the series pinned down a 3.2 rating for first place in the demo.
“Extra” took second place with a 10 percent rise to a 3.3 in households for the week, including a 3.5 rating on March 26. The series tied “Access Hollywood” for second place in the women 18 to 34 demo with a 1.6 rating.
“Access” tied King World Productions’ “Inside Edition” for third place in households at a 2.9 for “Access’s” best week of the season, a rise of 12 percent. “Inside Edition” rose 4 percent for the week in households and earned a 1.3 among women 18 to 34.
Among talk shows, Studios USA Domestic Television’s “Sally Jessy Raphael” earned its lowest household numbers in at least 13 years, dropping to ninth place in the genre with a 2.2 rating. That figure is down 31 percent from last year and off 4 percent from the previous week.
“Sally” also took ninth place among women 18 to 34 (1.2 rating) as well as women 18 to 49 (1.2). The strip fares better in the older categories, rising to eighth among women 25 to 54 (1.2) and landing in seventh with women 50 plus (2.0).
King World’s “Oprah” still tops the list across the board in every female demographic for the genre. In households, the strip rose 9 percent to a 6.2, with scores of 3.3 among women 18 to 34 and 7.1 with women 50 plus.
Buena Vista Television’s “Live With Regis & Kelly” continued to hold second place among households despite slipping 2 percent to a 4.0 rating. “Regis” remained enormously popular with older women, easily taking second place among women 50 plus with a 4.3 rating. However, the series slipped to eighth in the women 18 to 34 category with a 1.6.
Conversely, Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution’s “Jenny Jones” and Columbia TriStar Television Distribution’s “Ricki Lake” scored well in younger demos but fell significantly with older audiences. The two series tied for the week in households with a 2.3. “Jenny Jones” landed in second-to-last place among both women 25 to 54 and women 50 plus with a 1.1 rating in both categories. However, the strip jumped nine-tenths of a ratings point and three spots in the rankings to fifth place among women 18 to 34.
“Ricki” landed in third place among women 18 to 34 with a 2.2 rating (tied with Studios USA’s “Jerry Springer”) but slipped in rating and rank in the older demos, placing sixth in women 25 to 54 with a 1.7 and eighth in women 50 plus with a 1.3.