USA Wins Week Despite LeBron and 'Pawn'

Despite giving its Thursday prime-time lineup the night off, USA Network managed to knock out another ratings win last week, averaging 2.75 million viewers in prime.Per Nielsen live-plus-same-day ratings for the week ended July 11, USA once again took the core demos, averaging 1.15 million adults 25-54 and 1.04 million viewers 18-49.With Burn Notice and Royal Pains out of the picture, WWE Raw did much of the heavy lifting for USA. The Monday night wrestling showcase averaged 4.78 million viewers between 9 p.m. and 11:09 p.m., a draw that included 2.45 million adults 25-54 and 2.34 million viewers 18-49.TNT held onto second place among all ad-supported cable nets, averaging 2.42 million total viewers, including 1.06 million adults 25-54 and 920,000 viewers 18-49. The Turner net enjoyed its highest delivery with Saturday evening’s Nascar Sprint Cup race from Chicagoland Speedway, which drew 4.61 million viewers between 7:30 p.m. and 10:55 p.m. Forty-year-old David Reutimann’s impressive upset victory helped draw 2.34 million adults 25-54 and 1.82 million viewers 18-49.Memphis Beat delivered 3.6 million viewers in its Tuesday 10 p.m. time slot, improving on lead-in Hawthorne by 32 percent. Since debuting to 4.33 million viewers on June 22, Memphis Beat is averaging 3.97 million viewers, per Nielsen. Bolstered by The Secret Life of the American Teenager and its new hit Pretty Little Liars, ABC Family vaulted into third place on the week, up from a seventh place finish the week of Independence Day. The netwrok averaged 1.82 million viewers in prime, tying History for the bronze.ABC Family won the 18-34 demo outright, averaging 497,000 members of the demo, while taking fourth among 18-49s (877,000). Secret Life on Monday night delivered 2.99 million viewers at 8 p.m., while the following night saw Pretty Little Liars scare up 2.62 million viewers, a 25 percent gain from the June 29 installment, which reached 2.09 million. Through its first five episodes, Liars is averaging 2.48 million total viewers.In a week that saw it take third among adults 25-54 (912,000) and fifth among the 18-49 set (822,000), History enjoyed another stellar round of performances from Pawn Stars and American Pickers. On July 5 at 10:30 p.m., Pawn Stars served up 6.34 million viewers, including 3.46 million adults 25-54 and 3.27 million viewers 18-49. A lead-in episode of Pawn Stars set the tone with 6.14 million viewers/3.43 million 25-54s/3.12 million 18-49s.At 9 p.m., American Pickers kicked off the night in front of 5.01 million viewers, more than half of which were adults 25-54 (2.58 million). The one-hour Pickers also delivered 2.26 million viewers 18-49.Fourth place on the week went to Nick at Nite, which drew 1.77 million viewers in prime, edging Fox News Channel by some 16,000 viewers. Featuring voiceovers from Victoria Beckham and Sebastian Bach, the SpongeBob SquarePants episode “The Clash of Triton” drew 5.18 million viewers Monday night at 8 p.m. The following night, another fresh SpongeBob installment (“Gramma’s Secret Recipe”) landed 3.62 million viewers.On the week, ESPN drew the largest single audience with LeBron: The Decision. The two-time NBA MVP’s choreographed announcement that he was leaving Cleveland for Miami drew 9.95 million viewers on July 8, topping the demos with 5.71 million viewers 18-49, 5.35 million adults 25-54 and 3.2 million viewers 18-34.Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch continued to cast a wide net, averaging 5.27 million viewers Tuesday night at 9 p.m. The show also put up big demo numbers, averaging 3.35 million adults 25-54 and 3.18 million viewers 18-49.On the week, the top 10 outlets serving the primary TV demo were: USA, which averaged 1.04 million viewers 18-49; TNT (920,000); ESPN (892,000); ABC Family (877,000); History (822,000); TBS (817,000); Discovery Channel (724,000); FX (718,000); Syfy (709,000) and A&E (683,000).Miley Cyrus’ long goodbye helped non-ad-supported Disney Channel win the week with an average nightly delivery of 2.77 million total viewers. Sunday night’s premiere installment of the final season of Hannah Montana (i.e., Hannah Montana Forever) delivered 5.72 million total viewers at 8 p.m., before throwing to a new installment of Good Luck Charlie (5.03 million). All told, the Mouse last week averaged 1.52 million kids 2-11 in prime, while notching 1.45 million viewers 6-14 and 924,000 ‘tweens 9-14.

Convergent TV

USA Wins Week Despite LeBron and 'Pawn'

Anthony Crupi

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Anthony Crupi