Nielsen Ratings: Monday January 29, 2007

PRISON BREAK is not the break out success it was last year or even earlier this season before an ill planned baseball break. Following the same trap as 24 before it, when a hit show goes on hiatus midseason, the trend is to return to lower ratings. Up against the peacocks DEAL OR NO DEAL, PRISON BREAK fell to second place at the freshman time slot. HEROES flew by 24 last night to take most watched honors of the night and a rerun of CSI:THE TERRIBLE ONE, is still more watchable than STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP despite friend of TVgasm, Jackie, having a line in last nights episode.

Even though fox was in second place for both hours of its prime-time last night, the 24 / PRISON BREAK combo was enough to propel it into most watched network of the night.

For the complete Nielsen ratings from last night, 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.