Nielsen Fast Nationals From Fri-Sun, June 8-10, 2007

Appearantly, the good people at Nielsen dont like the fact that we are putting information in chart form, but have no problem if we give the information in paragraph form. . . Lame, yes. Make any sense, no. But whatever, never one to burn bridges (except for 98% of what TVgasm puts up), We will now report their findings in a non chart form. . . how fun.

For Friday night NBC comes in first with Law & Order having 1.8/6, which tied with CBS’s Numbers. ABC’s 20/20 comes in second with 1.7/6. CW comes in third place with WWE Friday Night Smackdown having 1.6/5. ABC’s America’s Funniest Home Videos comes in forth with 1.5/6.

For Saturday, CBS comes in first with Die Another Day (movie special) having 1.9/6. FOX had America’s Most Wanted coming in second with 1.8/7. Also, FOX had Cops coming in third with 1.6/7.

For Sunday, ABC comes in first with NBA Finals: Game 2 (special) having 3.3/9. Coming in second was FOX with Simpsons , my favorite show on TV along with South Park, having 2.6/8. And coming in third, ABC with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition having 1.8/6

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.