This time it was two nights of football that powered NBC to its 5th straight weekly win in the Nielsen ratings – a special Thursday night kickoff of the NFL season and then its first Sunday night game of the regular season. With the football lead-in, NBC’s coverage of John McCain’s Thursday night acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention was also a top 20 show, even though it was also aired on numerous other outlets.
In Household ratings, NBC scored an average 5.8 rating and 10 share, followed by Fox 4.4/7, CBS 3.5/6, ABC 2.8/5, CW 2.1/3, Univision 20/3, MyNetworkTV 0.8/1, Telemundo 0.6/1, TeleFutura 0.3/1, Ion 0.3/0 and Azteca America 0.1/0.
In the prized 18-49 demo it was NBC, Fox, Univision, CBS, CW, ABC, a tie by Telemundo and MyNetworkTV, TeleFutura, and a final tie by Ion and Azteca America.
Here are the week’s top 20 shows.
Nielsen Television Index Ranking Report
Network primetime (Live + SD) week of 09/01/08 – 09/07/08
|
Rank
|
Program |
Network
|
HH Rating
|
HH Share
|
2+ Audience (000)
|
|
1
|
NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL |
NBC
|
11.2
|
18
|
18351
|
|
2
|
NBC NFL THURSDAY SPECIAL(S) |
NBC
|
8.6
|
15
|
13531
|
|
3
|
FOX NFL SUNDAY-PST GN-NAT |
FOX
|
8.1
|
15
|
12907
|
|
3
|
SUNDAY NIGHT NFL PRE-KICK |
NBC
|
8.1
|
14
|
13337
|
|
5
|
DEAL OR NO DEAL-MON |
NBC
|
6.8
|
11
|
10964
|
|
6
|
60 MINUTES |
CBS
|
6.6
|
12
|
10075
|
|
6
|
AMERICA’S GOT TALENT |
NBC
|
6.6
|
10
|
10772
|
|
8
|
AMERICA’S GOT TALENT-WED |
NBC
|
6.3
|
10
|
10249
|
|
9
|
FOOTBALL NT AMERICA PT 3 |
NBC
|
6.2
|
11
|
10026
|
|
10
|
BONES |
FOX
|
6.0
|
9
|
9739
|
|
11
|
OT, THE |
FOX
|
5.8
|
10
|
8991
|
|
12
|
DECISION ’08 REP CONV THU(S) |
NBC
|
5.5
|
9
|
8663
|
|
13
|
NCIS |
CBS
|
5.4
|
9
|
8168
|
|
14
|
SMARTER THAN 5TH 9/5-9P(S) |
FOX
|
5.2
|
9
|
8566
|
|
15
|
TWO AND A HALF MEN-SPC(S) |
CBS
|
5.1
|
8
|
7834
|
|
16
|
CSI |
CBS
|
4.9
|
8
|
7267
|
|
16
|
HOUSE |
FOX
|
4.9
|
8
|
7753
|
|
18
|
20/20-FRI |
ABC
|
4.6
|
8
|
6751
|
|
19
|
BIG BROTHER 10-SUN |
CBS
|
4.4
|
7
|
7202
|
|
20
|
BIG BROTHER 10-THU |
CBS
|
4.3
|
7
|
6575
|
Source: Nielsen Media Research
