Nielsen Ratings: Friday January 12, 2007

Jublee Boob Hooters’ show THE GHOST WHISPERER was top of the pack this Friday beating out craptastic programming on the other networks. CLOSE TO HOME was close to first for a full hour but LAS VEGAS won big overtaking the sophomore series in the second half hour. Hindsight is 20/20 abc, who in retrospect wishes it had picked a better time slot for the news show which is currently in last place against LAW AND ORDER and NUMBERS.

For the complete Nielsen Ratings from Friday night in the 18-49 demo, click for 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.