USA Takes Ratings Race, ESPN Nabs Demos

Spurred by a revitalized Friday night lineup, USA Network last week returned to its familiar perch atop the cable ratings heap, averaging 3.09 million viewers in prime. But as has been the case throughout the fall season, the NBC Universal network couldn’t hold off ESPN in the core demos.For the week ended Nov. 22, ESPN maintained its supremacy among adults 25-54 (1.45 million), viewers 18-49 (1.45 million) and viewers 18-34 (743,000), as even a substandard Monday Night Football draw proved sufficient to trump USA.Drawing 10.2 million viewers, the Nov. 16 Browns-Ravens game now stands as the lowest-rated MNF telecast of the year. An underwhelming 4-4 Baltimore franchise blanked the woeful 1-7 Browns by a 16-0 margin, in an AFC North scrum that featured three scoreless quarters of play. Despite the relatively low turnout, MNF did well enough to walk away with top marks among the demos, drawing 5.36 million viewers 18-49, 5.43 million adults 25-54 and 2.52 million viewers 18-34, per Nielsen live-plus-same-day ratings data.On the week, ESPN averaged 2.93 million total viewers.USA Network took second place among the two larger demos, averaging 1.37 million adults 25-54 and 1.29 million viewers 18-49. Tops among USA’s program deliveries were: the Nov. 20 installment of Monk, which drew 5.3 million viewers in its Friday 9 p.m. time slot, and lead-out White Collar, which continues to rebound from an anomalous third-week plummet, averaging 4.56 million viewers.White Collar improved 7 percent from the prior week’s delivery (4.28 million), and grew 18 percent after dropping to 3.85 million viewers on Nov. 6.USA also got a lift from the ever reliable WWE Raw, which averaged 5.05 million viewers Monday night between 9 p.m. and 11:16 p.m.Fox News Channel retained third place, serving up 2.44 million total viewers, while moving up to seventh among the core news demo with an average nightly draw of 655,000 adults 25-54. FNC boasted its biggest delivery with the Nov. 18 installment of Hannity, thanks to a special guest appearance by former Alaska Governor/GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who helped scare up 4.2 million viewers in the 9 p.m. time slot.TBS held onto fourth place on the week, drawing 2 million viewers, of which more than half (1.11 million) were viewers 18-49. TBS took fourth among the two larger demos, drawing 919,000 adults 25-54, while maintaining its hold on second place among 18-34s (638,000).TNT returned to the top five with 1.96 million total viewers. The Turner net posted its best demo number with the 25-54 set, averaging 927,000.Last week’s top 10 ad-supported cable nets among the core TV demo were: ESPN, averaging 1.45 million viewers 18-49; USA (1.29 million); TBS (1.11 million); TNT (871,000); FX (701,000); A&E (635,000); Comedy Central (610,000); History (600,000); Spike TV (588,000) and ABC Family (581,000).As is so often the case, the roster of individual programs that drew the largest concentration of viewers 18-49 was a funky bouillabaisse of sport, comedy, drama, competition series and a few hybrid curiosities. ESPN’s MNF drew 5.36 million members of the core TV demo, good for first place on the week. Next up was ESPN’s post-MNF SportsCenter (2.74 million), beating out Lifetime’s season finale of Project Runway (2.5 million).FX’ Sons of Anarchy continues to lead all scripted cable in deliveries of the TV demo, drawing 2.47 million viewers 18-49 on the night of Nov. 17. USA’s WWE Raw took fifth among the demo (2.43 million), followed by: Comedy Central’s South Park (2.02 million); Bravo’s Top Chef (1.91 million); Spike TV’s The Ultimate Fighter (1.83 million) ; MTV’s The Hills (1.8 million) and a Nov. 17 repeat of Family Guy, which drew 1.78 million 18-49s to Adult Swim at 11:30 p.m.

Convergent TV

USA Takes Ratings Race, ESPN Nabs Demos

Anthony Crupi

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Anthony Crupi