Ratings News - 8th April 2011

Prime-Time Metered Market Thursday Ratings:
Fox Wins; CBS a Comfortable Second

Thursday 4/07/11
Note: The overnight data now includes DVR playback until 3 a.m. local time. One year earlier it was based on Live data only. All times are ET/PT.

HH
Rtg/Shr
Fox 10.7/17
CBS 8.4/14
ABC 2.7/ 4
NBC 2.0/ 3
CW 1.7/ 3

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-Percent Change From the Year-Ago Evening (Thursday, April 8, 2010):
Fox: +91, CBS: -11, CW: -19, ABC: -27, NBC: -31

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-Yesterday's Winners:
American Idol (Fox), The Big Bang Theory (CBS), CSI (CBS), The Mentalist (CBS)

-Yesterday's Losers:
Perfect Couples (NBC)

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-Ratings Breakdown:
Fox remained in the overnight Thursday winner’s circle thanks to American Idol, which stood well above anything else last night with a 14.3 rating/23 share from 8-9 p.m. If you did not see American Idol, stop reading now. But that was quite a shocker seeing favorite Pia Toscano exit last night, which many are comparing to the premature departures of Tamyra Gray and Jennifer Hudson.

American Idol led into an original installment of Bones, which finished second with a 7.1/12 at 9 p.m.

Over at second-place CBS, reliable The Big Bang Theory remained just that, with a healthy second-place 7.9/13 in the overnights at 8 p.m. But lead-out Rules of Engagement slipped to a 5.6/ 9 at 8:30 p.m. (also #2), losing 29 percent of the Big Bang lead-in. CBS, needless to say, can do better in this half-hour next season. Next on the Eye net was aging CSI, which won the 9 p.m. hour in the overnights (8.4/14) but is expected to rank third among adults 18-49. The Mentalist capped off the night for CBS with a dominant 10.1/17 at 10 p.m. and could very well move up to 9 p.m. on Thursday next season. Stay tuned.

ABC filled the evening with repeats of Wipeout (#3: 3.1/ 5), Grey’s Anatomy (#3: 3.1/ 5) and Private Practice (#3, 1.9/ 3), while the only show of an original nature on NBC last night was the series-finale of failed Perfect Couples, which was far from perfect at a fourth-place 1.6/ 3 at 8:30 p.m. Next week marks the debut of comedy The Paul Reiser Show in the time period.

Leading into Perfect Couples on NBC was a repeat of Community at a fourth-place 1.7/ 3 at 8 p.m., and out of it were encore telecasts of The Office (#4: 2.5/ 4), Parks and Recreation (#4: 2.1/ 3), 30 Rock (#3: 2.1/ 3) and Outsourced (#2: 2.2/ 4) from 9-11 p.m.

The CW capped off the night with original installments of The Vampire Diaries (#4: 2.1/ 3), its highest rated series, and Nikita (#5: 1.5/ 2), which could be back next season despite the not-so-stellar freshman rated season.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data (R = repeat)

Source: pifeedback