TV Ratings: 'Big Bang Theory,' 'Vampire Diaries' and Vice President debate lead Thursday
Football and baseball on cable take a bite out of network numbers
Paul Ryan and Joseph Biden debated on Thursday night
Credit: AP
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Playoff baseball and NFL football took a big bite out of network audiences on Thursday night, while the Vice Presidential debate took away many primetime favorites. In the end, though, it was "The Big Bang Theory" and "Two and a Half Men" carrying CBS to nightly wins among adults 18-49.
One of the big stories of the early ratings would be The CW's strong return for "The Vampire Diaries" and solid premiere for "Beauty and the Beast," though with Pittsburgh's CW affiliate showing the Steelers game, those numbers will likely to change. Then again, FOX had the Nashville side of the football game and "The X Factor" didn't get a bump.
Expect reasonable large changes to a lot of these numbers.
Among adults 18-49, CBS averaged a 2.7 rating for Thursday primetime, beating FOX's 2.4 rating in the key demographic. NBC's 1.9 rating and the 1.7 rating for ABC followed. The CW averaged a competitive 1.4 key demo rating for the night.
Overall, CBS averaged 9.35 million viewers and a 6.0 rating/9 share for the night. ABC's 4.4/7 and 6.91 million viewers and the 4.1/6 and 6.8 million viewers for FOX followed, with NBC's 5.73 million viewers and 3.7/6 close behind. The CW averaged a 2.0/3 and 3.32 million viewers for Thursday night.
8 p.m. - Both "The Big Bang Theory" (13.77 million viewers and a 4.2 key demo) and "Two and a Half Men" (11.17 million viewers and a 3.4 key demo) were down from last week but controlled the 8 p.m. hour for CBS. FOX's "The X Factor" averaged 8.25 million viewers and a 2.9 rating among adults 18-49, also off from last week. Continuing the trend, ABC's "Last Resort" slipped to 6.93 million viewers and a 1.6 key demo rating in third. NBC's "30 Rock" (3.82 million and a 1.4 key demo) and "Up All Night" (3.46 million and a 1.2 key demo) finished fourth overall and fifth in the key demo. The return of "The Vampire Diaries" averaged 3.48 million viewers and a 1.6 key demo rating, beating both ABC and NBC among adults 18-49. We'll see how much removing football -- preemptions in 3.5 percent of the country -- drops those CW numbers.
9 p.m. - It was All Debating All The Time for the rest of primetime. CBS' debate coverage averaged 8.32 million viewers and a 2.2 key demo rating. ABC's debate coverage averaged 7.48 million and a 1.9 key demo rating compared to the 7.12 million and 2.2 key demo rating for NBC's coverage. FOX's debating averaged only 5.345 million viewers and a 1.9 key demo. On The CW, the football-inflated premiere of "Beauty and the Beast" drew 3.16 million viewers and a 1.3 key demo rating. [That was basically in line with last fall's "Secret Circle" premiere and will probably end up a hair lower after adjustment.]
10 p.m. - CBS moved into first with 7.265 million viewers for debate coverage, finishing second with a 2.0 rating among adults 18-49. NBC's debate coverage averaged 6.42 million viewers and a 2.1 key demo rating. And ABC's debate coverage did 6.33 million viewers and a 1.6 key demo rating.
All ratings information comes from preliminary Fast National Nielsen data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are subject to change, particularly in the case of live events.
A long-time member of the TCA Board and a longer-time blogger of "American Idol," Dan Fienberg writes about TV, except for when he writes about movies or sometimes writes about the Red Sox. But never music. He would sound stupid talking about music.
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Login or create a HitFix account Login SignupBalaji K
October 12, 2012 at 12:16PM EST Reply to CommentNBC finishing below The CW for a second night in a row. It might be time to move at least Up All Night to Friday.
It looks like people haven't forgotten about The CW, they just do not care about Hart of Dixie, 90210 or Gossip Girl.
Matt Poor "Hart of Dixie." I know it's not doing *that* poorly. I also know that I wouldn't watch a second of it if I wasn't in love with Rachel Bilson, but I still wish it had a bigger audience.
October 12, 2012 at 12:28PM ESTJobin00 Is Up All Night really doing that bad though? It's retaining nearly all of the 30 Rock audience.
October 12, 2012 at 12:33PM ESTUnless it's barely getting any Live+3 improvement, I find it hard to believe that Up All Night would be moved.
dan Balaji - "Hart of Dixie" has done OK. In the New CW World Order, at least.
October 12, 2012 at 12:45PM ESTAnd yes, Jobin00, "Up All Night" is doing that bad. It's hard to imagine NBC tolerating those numbers in a sweeps period, but the options are limited, obviously...
-Daniel
Jobin00 Daniel,
October 12, 2012 at 1:02PM ESTBut wouldn't that mean that 30 Rock should also be moved from Thursday too?
Balaji K JOBIN00: Ideally, 30 Rock should also be moved to Friday but it's airing it's final 13 episodes and I thought NBC might give it a dignified farewell on Thursday.
October 12, 2012 at 8:37PM ESTBalaji K If one thought the fast national ratings were bad, both 30 Rock and Up All Night got adjusted down a tenth in the final ratings.
October 12, 2012 at 11:53PM ESTJohn
October 12, 2012 at 12:43PM EST Reply to CommentDan, since you enjoyed the math so much last time I did this, here's how much of a potential impact I would estimate the game had on CW's numbers:
For a lower end estimate, just the Pittsburgh market: Pittsburgh metro area accounts for roughly 1% of total TV households. Let’s assume that’s the same for the demo, so they have 1.0 ratings points to put to use in the demo. Sunday night football for NBC delivered a 7.2 demo rating. People in Pittsburgh would watch at a higher rate, so let’s say locally it got triple the demo rating for SNF, which would be a 21.6. So if you take 21.6% of their 1.0 national points, that results in a 0.22 demo rating influence. High end, let’s take the 3.5% of households that were preempted and use the same process and that gets 0.76 demo rating influence. And for a moderate estimate, let’s use the 3.5% of households, but say it only got double, rather than triple, the demo rating for SNF. With this we get 0.50 demo rating influence.
dan John - I can/will be totally wrong, but 0.5 demo influence sounds high... But we'll see!
October 12, 2012 at 1:07PM EST-Daniel
John I think Up All Night was adjusted 0.4 pts 2 Thursdays ago.
October 12, 2012 at 1:10PM ESTBalaji K In the end, TVD did not get adjusted down, BatB got adjusted down only a tenth. I guess Pittsburgh don't watch much football.
October 12, 2012 at 11:51PM ESTChampSkins
October 12, 2012 at 1:02PM EST Reply to CommentChances Last Resort gets cancelled and doesn't even air its 13 episodes? Assuming it won't get the back 9 pickup...
dan ChampSkins - 100 percent it airs all 13. OK. Fine. 95 percent. It's picking up enough audience in Live+3 that ABC isn't panicking and it's not hurting "Grey's Anatomy."
October 12, 2012 at 1:12PM ESTThis week's drop may have been a baseball-based aberration.
-Daniel
Balaji K It's sad that Last Resort got the same demo rating as TVD while getting more than double the viewers.
October 12, 2012 at 11:48PM ESTmgrabois
October 12, 2012 at 5:30PM EST Reply to CommentWonder why debate coverage varies that much among the four networks broadcasting the same footage? CBS has the most viewers, while NBC has 1.2 million fewer viewers but the same key demo reading. ABC had the same key demo as FOX but needed more than 2 million more viewers. That suggests that CBS skews older and FOX skews younger, which probably isn't news by itself.