ABC generated strong year-to-year improvement in Total Viewers (+2.9 million viewers) and Adults 18-49 (+62%) with its new Tuesday summer lineup over the year-ago night (6/23/09). In fact, ABC was up in each hour of the evening.
ABC’s 8-9pm season premiere of Wipeout ranked #1 in its time period among Adults 18-49, beating the opening hour or Fox’s 2-hour Hell’s Kitchen by 15%. The ABC unscripted series also won its hour and finished as the #1 TV show of the night with Adults 18-34 and Men 18-49. Wipeout was the #2 TV show of the evening in Adults 18-49, behind only NBC’s Tuesday veteran, America’s Got Talent. In Total Viewers and Adults 18-49, Wipeout generated ABC’s best summer numbers in the hour in nearly 2 years – since 7/29/08. Wipeout scored the series’ best numbers since July 2008 (7/29/08) with Total Viewers and Adults 18-34, and since May 2009 with Adults 18-49 (5/27/09). The show equaled its highest-ever rating with Teens 12-17.
Against stiff established unscripted competition on NBC (opening hour of America’s Got Talent) and Fox (second hour of Hell’s Kitchen), the series debut of Downfall greatly improved the hour for ABC year to year, surging by 2.9 million viewers and by 67% in Adults 18-49 over the year-ago night.
In the 10 o’clock hour, the series premiere of ABC News’ Primetime: Mind Games earned second place among Adults 18-49 to the second hour of NBC’s 2-hour America’s Got Talent. Primetime: Mind Games also finished #2 against its network competition in the hour among Adults 25-54 and Women 18-49. Primetime: Mind Games boosted the hour year to year for ABC by 18% in Total Viewers and by 18% in Adults 18-49 over the year-ago night with original programming.
(source: ABC)
