With the series finale of Lost, ABC posted a definitive victory the final Sunday night of the 2010 May Sweep and 2009-10 TV Season, leading its nearest competition by 2.3 million viewers (CBS) and by 100% in Adults 18-49 (NBC). Winning the evening for 4th time in 5 weeks among Adults 18-49, ABC registered its 6th straight May as Sunday’s #1 TV network in the key young adult sales demo.
Excluding the nights of its Academy Awards broadcasts, ABC marked its strongest Sunday in nearly 2-1/2 years among Adults 18-49 – since 12/2/07.
From 7:00-9:00 p.m., Lost: The Final Journey (a clip show covering the series’ 6 seasons), drew an average audience of 9.8 million viewers and an 4.0/13 in Adults 18-49 to win its time period on both counts.
The Lost recap special generated ABC’s best non-Oscar Adult 18-49 number in the 2-hour time slot since November 2007 – since 11/25/07.
Surging from its lead-in at 9:00 p.m., the 2-1/2 hour series finale of Lost pulled in an average audience of 13.5 million viewers and an 5.8/15 in Adults 18-49 to stand as the #1 TV show on Sunday night on both counts.
Lost soared to the top of its time period, beating out its nearest network competition (NBC’s season finale of Celebrity Apprentice from 9:00-11:00 p.m.) by 4.2 million viewers by 71% in Adults 18-49. Lost registered as TV’s highest-rated drama finale this season in Adults 18-49.
In Total Viewers and Adults 18-49, Lost generated its biggest finale in 3 years – since 5/23/07. It was the series’ strongest telecast overall since February 2008 in viewers and young adults– since 2/21/08 and 2/14/08, respectively.
ABC estimates that 20.5 million unique viewers watched the series finale of Lost during its 2-1/2 hour broadcast – unduplicated viewers that watched 6-minutes or more of the program.
From 12:05-1:05am, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live: Aloha to Lost generated a big boost and broad exposure to the show, up by 3.22 million viewers (4.88 million vs. 1.66 million) and by 2.04 million in Adults 18-49 (2.73 million vs. 690,000) over its late-night average this season. In fact it was JKL’s 3rd-largest ever Adult 18-49 audience (any telecast), behind only its 2 post-Super Bowl airings.
(source: ABC)
