New York Magazine has an interesting slideshow on the ratings of various shows. These are what I thought were the highlights (Quotes are in italics):

Men and women are more in sync about Two and a Half Men, however: It’s the No. 2 show on TV among both men and women. // Really? The Gamesters are going to have a field day with this, bad boy Charlie Sheen (even if he isn’t on the show anymore) and all that. This is one of those shows that I really thought would tilt pretty heavily in the male direction.

Not counting football, NBC has zero shows in Nielsen’s list of the 40 most-watched shows on TV. // There really is no end to the bad news of NBC doldrums. Given the success of USA (owned by NBC) you wonder at what point they don’t just start taking USA show ideas and putting them on NBC instead.

NBC may not have a lot of viewers, but the viewers it does have are well educated. The Peacock boasts eight of the top ten shows with the greatest concentration of adults 18-49 with four or more years of college. // This doesn’t surprise me. For a network nobody watches, it’s #2 among the shows I watch. So that’s good news, but…

TNT’s Rizzoli & Isles, with nearly 9 million viewers, is the most-watched scripted show on cable this season, and its overall audience is bigger than every show on NBC save SVU and Harry’s Law. // And Harry’s Law “doesn’t count” because its viewership is old. I’ve been meaning to watch HL, but the more I read about it, the more I fear that the politics of the show will make Boston Legal pale in comparison. Notable tidbit: Kathy Bates replaced James Spader as the headliner in a David E Kelley legal drama (albeit not the same show) and Spader replaced Bates on The Office. I’ve seen a couple episodes of R&I, and while it’s not bad, I don’t for the life of me understand the popularity. I guess I’m not the target audience.

Young women hate nerds: Among females 18-34, the lowest-rated scripted show on any network, including the CW, is Chuck, with a 0.7 rating. // So they’d rather be watching programming where the women are the butt of jokes rather than where an alpha chick falls in love with a nerdy guy. Gamester vindication, again.

The network show rich people like the least? Fox’s Cops, which averages a mere 0.6 rating in upscale adults 18-49. // No further comment.


Category: Theater

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3 Responses to Fun With Nielson

  1. Peter says:

    Makes you wonder if the people who watch Cops do so because they identify with the criminals.

  2. trumwill says:

    My status theory is that it gives less educated folks someone to point to and say “I’m better than that!”

  3. Scarlet Knight says:

    The people who fans of NBC shows generally brag that these shows are watched on DVR or Hulu. This doesn’t do NBC any good though when it comes to advertising, however.

    Remember, the whole point of television is to get viewers to watch the advertising.

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