Fast National ratings for Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008

The opening game of the NFL season delivered Thursday's ratings crown to NBC, even if its numbers were down a good bit from last season's opener.

NBC averaged a 7.5 rating/12 share in primetime (those numbers may change some because of the live broadcast), easily beating the 4.2/7 for second-place CBS. FOX took third with a 3.3/6, edging ABC's 3.2/6. The CW trailed at 1.5/2.

The Peacock also dominated among adults 18-49 with a 4.7 rating. FOX took second in the demographic with a 2.4. CBS, 1.8, came in third, followed by ABC, 1.2, and The CW, 1.0.

NBC's NFL coverage (which started at 7 p.m. to accommodate the Republican National Convention) drew an 8.3/14 at 8 p.m. Big Brother 10, 4.2/7, put CBS in second. FOX's Kitchen Nightmares, 3.1/5, beat out ABC's Ugly Betty rerun for third. A repeat of the 90210 premiere on The CW earned a 1.5/2.

The NFL game between the New York Giants and Washington improved to 8.9/14 at 9 p.m., a couple points below last year's opening game. CBS stayed in second with CSI, 5.0/8. Kitchen Nightmares improved to 3.5/5, keeping FOX ahead of a Grey's Anatomy encore, 3.0.5, on ABC. The CW held steady with the second hour of 90210.

NBC held the lead at 10 p.m., scoring a 5.2/8 with John McCain's acceptance speech at the Republican convention. ABC was second in households at 3.6/6, but CBS, 3.4/6, had a few more viewers.

Ratings information is taken from fast national data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are preliminary and subject to change, especially in the case of live telecasts.

Comments

i think the 30 million for mccain is part fo the nfl ratings could you comment on that

tariq abdul-aziz | Sep 6, 2008 10:46:31 AM | #

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I don't have any inside information, Tariq, but 5.2/8 for NBC's coverage seems about right to me. Yes, the football game did spill over a bit (I'm not sure how much; I was watching ABC), but it shouldn't have inflated the hourly average by all that much. Besides, NBC's Democratic Convention coverage rose to 4.1/7 on Thursday from 3.8/6 on Wednesday. This week, Wednesday was 4.9/8 and Thursday was 5.2/8, which is the same .3 bump for the presidential candidate versus the vice-presidential one.

The 30 million figure you mention would be all channels combined, which includes the cable news outlets. I haven't seen this week's figures, but last week CNN cleaned up with their convention coverage. Here is USA TODAY's estimation of the audience in millions for Obama's acceptance speech in the 10:00 hour on Thursday:

CNN - 8.1
ABC - 6.6
NBC - 6.1
CBS - 4.7
Fox News - 4.2
MSNBC - 4.1
...which adds up to 33.8 million viewers, though the newspaper reports the total as 30.2 million.

Alan '59 | Sep 6, 2008 8:13:06 PM | #

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