Ratings: Friday November 17, 2006

Friday proved to be a big DEAL for the NBC folk as Deal or no deal just barely edged out Jennifer Love Breastststs in the 18-49 Neilsen demographic. Las Vegas’ friday night gamble is paying off well this season, grabbing the number one spot in its time slot and the verdict is in on LAW & ORDERs new night taking in better numbers than one time hit show NUMB3RS which lost out to the second part of the BARBARA WALTERS SPECIAL : 30 MISTAKES.

Find the complete Neilsen breakdown (18-49 demo) 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.