Live awards shows have been surging in the DVR age, and last night it happened again.
ABC: The BILLBOARD MUSIC AWARDS blew away the competition with a 3.6 (peaking at 3.9 in the 9-9:30PM half-hour), the show’s highest rating in 10 years and up a huge 1.2 from last year. Before that, the season finale of AMERICA’S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS notched a season high 1.8, up 0.4 from last week.
NBC: Conversely, CELEBRITY APPRENTICE had its lowest-rated finale ever at 1.5, down an ugly 0.7 from last year (although it was up from last week’s 1.3 all-time low episode rating). The network started the night with a 0.7 rerun of THE VOICE.
FOX: Back-to-back season finale double features gave FOX 0.9/1.1 for THE CLEVELAND SHOW (the latter up a tick from last week), 1.8/2.1 for THE SIMPSONS (the latter even with last year’s season finale), and 2.6/2.5 for FAMILY GUY (the latter off 0.1 from the season finale last year).
CBS: After 1.4/1.3 for 2 hours of 60 MINUTES, the network could only manage a 1.2 with TIM MCGRAW’S SUPERSTAR SUMMER NIGHT, which didn’t even come close to Billboard in the older-skewing total viewers metric.
Although the network season still has a few days to run, and tonight features season finales for RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, MIKE & MOLLY and HAWAII 5-0, summer programming is beginning to rear its head, with premieres for THE GOODWIN GAMES on FOX and MOTIVE on ABC. Cable features the season finales of BATES MOTEL on A&E, and RECTIFY on Sundance Channel.
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