Nielsen Ratings: Tuesday January 16 2007

Let the IDOL worship begin. At its peak 40% of all those watching TV last night were watching the return of AMERICAN IDOL. Thats nearly 1/2 of all TVs turned on. WOW. EFFing WOW. Of course a lot more than that happened in the ratings, but who gives a shit? I mean, thats the real news of the day. Are you really going to care if I mention NCIS got a 4.0/9 or take the time to talk about THE UNIT? No.

The news is IDOL is back with a thunderous ratings jolt to the FOX network. After the jump, pay close attention to the “Who Won The Night?” section. . the numbers are staggering.

Complete Nielsen ratings can be found 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.