The highly-anticipated season premiere of TWO AND A HALF MEN, featuring the first episode with Ashton Kutcher, delivered the series’ largest audience and best adult 18-49 rating ever, leading CBS to a Monday win in adults 18-49 and adults 25-54, according to Nielsen live plus same day ratings for Sept. 19.
Leading off the night, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (P) was first in adults 25-54 (5.3/13), adults 18-49 (4.7/13), adults 18-34 (4.3/14), second in households (6.8/11) and viewers (11.01m). HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER posted its best delivery ever with a season premiere in viewers, adults 25-54, adults 18-49 and adults 18-34.
At 8:30 PM, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER SPECIAL (S) was first in adults 25-54 (5.8/13), adults 18-49 (5.2/13), adults 18-34 (4.7/13) and second in both households (7.3/11) and viewers (12.22m).
At 9 PM, TWO AND A HALF MEN (P) was first in households (16.7/24), viewers (28.74m), adults 25-54 (12.6/27) and adults 18-49 (10.7/25) – all series highs. TWO AND A HALF MEN posted the best season premiere for a scripted program in viewers since CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION in September 2005 and both adults 25-54 and adults 18-49 since “Desperate Housewives” in September 2005.
Following TWO AND A HALF MEN, the series premiere of 2 BROKE GIRLS (P) was first in adults 25-54 (8.6/18), adults 18-49 (7.1/16), second in households (11.5/16) and viewers (19.37m). The freshman comedy posted CBS’s best delivery in this time period with entertainment programming since May 16, 2005 in these measures. 2 BROKE GIRLS posted the largest audience for a fall comedy premiere since in September 2001 (“Inside Schwartz”).
At 10 PM, HAWAII FIVE-0 (P) won its time slot in adults 25-54 (4.5/10), adults 18-49 (3.4/08), second in both households (7.7/12) and viewers (12.19m).
For the night, CBS was first in adults 25-54 (6.9/16), adults 18-49 (5.8/14), adults 18-34 (4.4/12), second in both households (9.6/15) and viewers (16.00m).
CBS was also a hit online, with CBS.com posting a record-breaking day of traffic. The site, which features photos, videos and interactive content about the highly anticipated Monday night line-up, was up 100% to nearly 2 million unique users.
Traffic was driven by TWO AND A HALF MEN, which was the top-visited prime-time program on CBS.com and also posted the highest single-day of traffic ever for an individual show. Monday also marked CBS.com’s single highest daily social referrals in the site’s history, a testament to the success of the Network’s popular Tweet Week event as well as the popularity of CBS’s Facebook pages for its leading shows.
Note: DVR penetration is at 42%, up from 38% last year. Last Fall, Live+7 audiences for original entertainment series on CBS gained over 1.8 million viewers, on average, over Live+ Same Day ratings, more than any other network. This season, we expect DVR penetration to continue to increase and, as a result, we expect DVR playback audiences to grow to as well.
(source: CBS)
