ABC OFFERS FREE APP FOR WATCHING OSCARS

Working with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, ABC has updated the free iPhone/iPad/iPodTouch “Oscars” app it introduced last year that will allow viewers to access any of six cameras set up at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood for the Feb. 26 event presumably just for the online coverage. After downloading the app [...]

ABC’S WORK IT OUT OF WORK

After airing only two episodes, ABC has axed Work It, a show that had drawn fire from GLAAD, the gay-rights group, and from virtually every TV critic. TV Guide critic Matt Roush called it “atrocious” and “an instant early candidate for Worst Show of 2012.” Robert Lloyd in the Los Angeles Times remarked: “If you [...]

GREY’S ANATOMY RETURNS, TOPS PRIMETIME ON THURSDAY

The return of an all-new episode of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy after the show’s nearly two-month absence attracted more than 12 million viewers on Thursday and was the highest-rated show of the night, according to overnight figures from Nielsen Research. In fact, ABC performed quite strongly throughout the night, landing in first place among viewers 18-49. [...]

HUGE RATINGS FOR ABC’S NEW YEAR’S EVE SHOWS

You’d have to go back to December 31, 1999, the eve of the millennium, to find a New Year’s Rockin’ Eve show that attracted more viewers than Saturday’s on ABC. The 11:35-12:32 segment of the nearly night-long telecast attracted 22.6 million viewers. Numbers were boosted by the appearance of Lady Gaga, delivering a greatest-hits medley, [...]

BASKETBALL RETURNS ON XMAS — NO AUDIENCE LOSS EVIDENT

It would appear that the NBA lockout that delayed the start of the current season until Christmas Day had little or no effect on viewership — that is, judging from ratings for Sunday’s quadrupleheader carried by ABC, ESPN and TNT. In fact, the Boston Celtics-New York Knicks game on TNT averaged 5.9 million viewers, making [...]

FOOTBALL IS THROWN FOR A RATINGS LOSS

The most-watched television show last week was not NBC’s Sunday Night Football. In fact, the contest between Baltimore and San Diego ranked only fourth on the Nielsen ratings list for the week, presumably brought down by competition from the season finale of CBS’s Survivor: South Pacific. No, the No. 1 show was CBS’s eight-year-old drama [...]

BROADCAST NETS DOWN, CABLE UP IN 2011

The major broadcast networks continued to see an erosion of their audiences in 2011, while cable networks saw theirs expand, according to TVbytheNumbers.com. The website said on Thursday that while ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC saw their total household audience decline 3 percent this year, the audience for ad-support cable as a whole was up [...]

RATINGS PLUMMET FOR WALTERS’S MOST FASCINATING

Maybe it was just a case of the 2011 most fascinating celebrities being less fascinating than those of 2010, but Barbara Walters’s annual The Ten Most Fascinating People of the year saw a 23-percent ratings plunge Wednesday night. While last year’s list included Tiger Woods, Sandra Bullock, LeBron James, the cast of Jersey Shore, Jennifer [...]

CBS WEARS TWO RATINGS CROWNS

CBS was not only the most-watched network among total adults last week — a standing that it usually maintains — but it was also the most-watched among viewers 18-49, a standing that often eludes it. Nevertheless, the No. 1 show for the week remained NBC’s Sunday Night Football. The New York Giants/Dallas Cowboys matchup attracted [...]

RATINGS: NETWORKS SERVE LEFT-OVER TURKEY

The week following the Thanksgiving holiday saw a peculiar shift in the Nielsen ratings. To be sure, there was the expected lineup of football telecasts in the top ten, with NBC’s Sunday Night Football taking the No. 1 spot as usual as it attracted 18.9 million viewers. Taking the No. 2 spot with even more [...]

Next Page »