The winner of the HEROES Vs. 24 battle was clear and concise last night. With a 2 hour block of 24 pulling in a 4.9 rating average for both hours, HEROES is clearly the show of choice which doesn't fair well for the once mighty Bauer Hour. The second half hour of 24 fell from first to second behind DEAL OR NO DEAL despite its small gain in viewers of the hour. Buzz was were 24 not up against HEROES its numbers would be back to where they were last season, but if last nights 8 o'clock hour is any indication it could just be that people are losing interest in terrorist fare favoring fantasy instead....
For the complete Nielsen ratings from last night in key demos stick around after the jump. . .
How do I read these ratings?
A Nielsen rating may look like this:
8pm - NBC - TVgasm The TV Show - 10.0/18
Focus on the 10.0/18. The RATING, 10.0, on the left represents the actual number of households that watched a show. One rating point equals 1,102,000 households. The SHARE, 18, on the right represents the show's proportion of the total households watching television at that time.
For example, TVgasms TV Show has a 10 rating/18 share. That means 11,020,000 households are tuned in to the show and 18% of all the households with a TV turned on are watching that show.
Ratings and Share are customarily broken down for various DEMOs -- a demographic grouping of viewers, like 18-49 adults or 2-12 children or 18-34 women, etc. Advertisers, and therefore networks, covet the 18-49 adult demo, and so tend to concentrate on that number.