TV Patrol: Lopez Beats Lopez

It was George vs George on Thanksgiving night. Nick at Nite aired reruns of The George Lopez Show directly opposite his new late nite talk show, Lopez Tonight on TBS and won! Lopez’s old sitcom garnered 2.5 million viewers, while his late-night party, as he calls it, only had 1.5 million tuning in. Clearly one million less stopping by to par-tay, but 1.5 mil is the usual numbers for the talk show. This is not the norm for NICK & the network hasn’t repeated the 11pm schedule since then.

So how are the other talk shows doing?The Wanda Sykes Show (FOX) is only on Saturday nights, but it’s holding it’s own against Saturday Night Live with 2.5 million tuning in. She just needs to cut her monologue in half & showcase more of her drag queen sidekick. The drinking around the round table segment needs more booze too.

The big dogs are in a neck & neck race for the #1 late night spot. The Late Show with David Letterman has managed to stay ahead of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien but that gap is getting smaller & smaller. The two are pretty much on an even keel right now. I’ve always been a David watcher, so I can’t bring myself to bash Conan. Jay Leno, on the other hand, is an easy target. He can’t even beat repeats in his own time slot.

Surprisingly, ABC’s Nightline has beat Dave & Conan the last 3 weeks in a row. It’s half-hour news program at 11:30pm had an average of 4.1 million viewers compared to Dave’s 3.9 & Conan’s 2.3 million in the same 11:30 time slot. It was either the party crashers at the White House or Tiger Wood’s idiotic accident. Why else would we check out the news at night?

If you want the truth, I really love The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson . He’s better than all the others. He has beat the competition week after week with 1.8 million tuning in for his improv monologues & puppet shows. Jimmy Kimmel Live which is considered ‘late late’ viewing, comes in second with 1.7 million watching & bringing up the rear is Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, who manages to garner 1.3 million viewers.

Ok, let’s move on to last week’s ratings. ABC finally made it to the top with it’s Dancing with the Stars finale on Monday night. They also managed to get decent ratings for their new kleenex-motivated, tearjerker, Find My Family which showed up at #12 with 12.8 million sticking around after DWTS to decide if it was worth their time. Thank god most of them realized what a moronic, exploitive, emotionally disgusting, piece of crap it really is. Only 7.8 million chose to watch the two episodes they aired this week. Hopefully it will keep declining & be gone by the new year. One good thing for ABC, Castle finally made the list at #19 giving them 6 shows in the ‘top twenty’.

The Hallmark Hall of Fame sentimental movie, A Dog Named Christmas helped round out CBS’s dominance again this week at #15. I even watched it & almost went to adopt a dog. Then my smelly, little dog came in the livingroom & scruffed his ass across the carpet & hardened my softened heart.

Here is Mr. Nielson’s “Top Twenty” list for the week of Nov. 23-29:

1. Dancing with the Stars (Mon) ABC 20.4 million
2. NCIS CBS 20.3 million
3. Dancing with the Stars (Tue) ABC 19.3 million
4. Sunday Night Football NBC 19.2 million
5. NCIS: Los Angeles CBS 17.2 million
6. 60 Minutes CBS 14.4 million
7. The Big Bang Theory CBS 14.1 million
8. Two & a Half Men CBS 13.9 million
9. Criminal Minds CBS 13.6 million
10. CSI: Miami CBS 13.2 million
11. Desperate Housewives ABC 12.8 million
12. Find My Family ABC 12.8 million
13. CSI: NY CBS 12.7 million
14. The Good Wife CBS 12.5 million
15. A Dog Named Christmas CBS 12.4 million
16. House FOX 12 million
17. The Amazing Race 15 CBS 11.6 million
18. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition ABC 10.4 million
19. Castle ABC 10.3 million
20. Survivor: Samoa CBS 9.9 million

That about does it for this week. Cable’s “Top Five” were football games on ESPN & Monk made the list again. WWE Monday Night RAW was also there. Jon & Kate Plus 8‘s final show was #15 with 4.3 million tuning in to say goodbye.

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