The ratings below are household ratings from the 56 television markets with local Nielsen meters for Saturday August 17 and Sunday August 18, 2013. (The 56 markets out of 210 total cover about 70% of the US television population.)   NASCAR was off a bit from last year but still a very viable 3.0 rating. […]

  The really interesting numbers last night are likely to be on cable, with the roaring Breaking Bad airing against the season finale of True Blood. FOX:  NFL PRESEASON FOOTBALL (Indianapolis at NY Giants) scored a preliminary 1.8 rating with adults 18-49 in the fast nationals, which we have adjusted up to an estimated 2.1 […]

  Don’t get too comfortable with this morning’s numbers.  Per Mitch Metcalf:  “Because of local pre-emptions for NFL preseason games, each network except for FOX should decline in the official nationals.  CBS, NBC and CW should drop about one tenth of a rating point (maybe two tenths).  But ABC will drop the most (down four […]

Here is how the current week is shaping up (through Wednesday).  Duck Dynasty is cruising into first place among everything on television (a stunning 5.0 rating with adults 18-49 for its season premiere).

  Amazingly, the phenomenon that is DUCK DYNASTY may still not have peaked.  Last night’s Season 4 premiere on A&E hit a new high, with 11.8M viewers (more than 2M more than April’s Season 3 finale), and an 18-49 number that should translate into a 5.0-5.1 rating (almost a full point above April’s 4.3).  That’s […]

  A troublesomely low night for NBC. NBC:  AMERICA’S GOT TALENT took a sizable 0.4 hit last night, down to a season low 2.1.  That wasn’t good for CAMP, which tied its 1.0 low.  As to Camp, although one might think the show would skew much younger than reruns of SVU–and it does–its 18-49 rating […]

  With one exception, nothing on network TV last night was above a 1.3 rating–which is to say, the night was firmly in what used to be called “cable territory.” NBC:  AMERICA’S GOT TALENT towered over the rest of the network offerings, but at 2.4, it was down 0.1 from last week and tied its […]

The weekly network ratings in prime time (now based on seven days of official nationals) are final, with substantial downward revisions from our estimate yesterday. The Saturday fast national ratings were vastly overstated because of continued local coverage of NFL preseason games in a handful of markets, and that was enough to inflate the weekly […]