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Syndie Ratings Down Post-Sweeps

Mar 22, 2005  •  Post A Comment

The first full week of national syndicated ratings after the February sweeps was nothing if not predictable–with an abundance of first-run repeats and a lack of promotion from stations, ratings were down week to week.

For the week ended Mar. 13, a majority of strips were down across all genres, but in talk, two shows saw gains.

King World’s “Dr. Phil,” the second-highest talker, scored a 6.0 national household rating, according to Nielsen Media Research. That was up 2 percent from the previous week. NBC Universal’s “Starting Over” scored a 1.2 rating, up 9 percent from its previous week.

The top-rated talk strip, King World’s “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” maintained its dominance over the genre despite a 20 percent drop from the previous week.

Among courtroom strips, all shows were down except genre leader “Judge Judy” from Paramount, which was flat for the week with a 5.2.

King World’s game show strip “Wheel of Fortune,” the highest-rated show in syndication, was down 3 percent to a 9.6. the top off-network sitcom, King World’s “Everybody Loves Raymond,” dropped 3 percent to a 7.0. The genre leading newsmagazine, Paramount’s “Entertainment Tonight,” dropped 7 percent to a 5.5.

The leading off-network weekly hour, King World’s rookie “CSI,” bucked the downward trend by staying unchanged from the previous week with a 5.4.