A quartet of talk shows, most of the newsmagazines and a pair of court shows earned new season highs during the first full week of November sweeps, according to Nielsen Media Research.
After suffering some West Coast pre-emptions the previous week due to coverage of the Southern California wildfires, daytime series such as King World’s “Dr. Phil,” which hit an all-time high, rebounded during the week ending Nov. 9. “Dr. Phil” was up 11 percent week to week to a 5.9 national household rating. In addition, the sophomore show is up 34 percent from last year.
Also snagging best-ever scores were Telepictures freshmen duo “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and “The Sharon Osbourne Show.” “Ellen” was up 14 percent compared with the previous week to 1.6, tying “Sharon” for the top spot among rookie first-run strips. “Sharon” was up 7 percent for the week.
Daytime staple “Maury” earned its highest rating of the season with a 7 percent jump to a 3.1 for distributor Universal.
The majority of court shows also stayed strong, with two strips hitting new season highs. Genre leader “Judge Judy” tallied a 4 percent increase to a 5.2 for Paramount, while Twentieth Television’s “Divorce Court” also grew 4 percent to a 2.8.
Newsmagazines continued to tear up the ratings charts, since none of the five series in the genre dipped for the week. In fact, the top four strips all matched or scored their best ratings so far this season.
Paramount’s “Entertainment Tonight” tied its season best, running even with last week’s score of 6.1, which is up 2 percent year to year. King World’s “Inside Edition” hit a season high 3.6 with a 6 percent jump week to week and a 13 percent climb year to year. NBC Enterprises’ “Access Hollywood” scored the biggest jump in the genre, rising 10 percent to a season high 3.2. In addition, the series is up 7 percent compared with the same period last year. Telepictures’ “Extra” was unchanged at a 2.6 but matched its best numbers of the season. Sister series “Celebrity Justice” did not hit a season high but was up 8 percent for the week to a 1.3.