NBC is ranked number 4 currently among (I assume) CBS, FOX, ABC and NBC.
CERTAINLY only “prime time” is meant by this, correct?
1.TODAY show… This is and has been Number 1 for ages right?
“NBC…your late night leader” I mean Leno and Conan do it for me nightly. Uhm. I like to watch them perform. … No wait… well you get what I mean!
Seriously. How can the Domination of 2 other Schedule periods equate to number 4?
I can only immagine it is in terms of viewership… for possible Advertisers. Nielsen and all of that. Why would Advertisers shy away from the times of day NBC is Number 1?
Please tell me how Being 1st 1st and 4th equate to 4th.
All the morning shows on Fox, NBC, CBS and ABC have a combined audience of around 11 million people, according to the PR releases that fly around my office.
Today has been number 1 week-to-week for about 10 years.
Good Morning America is number 2, and this year has beat Today on some days, but not on a week-to-week basis.
The Early Show and Fox and Friends are tied for last, with about 2 million total viewers each.
Because the total viewing audience is different during different times of the day.
I don’t have any particular numbers so I’m just pulling these out of the air here but let’s say that in the mornings (when Today) is on there are 30 million TV viewers and NBC has 10 million of them. During prime time there are 150 million TV viewers and NBC has 10 million of them and at night (during Leno) there are 20 million TV viewers and NBC has 10 million of them. CBS, on the other hand, has, say, 5 million in the morning, 5 million at night and 80 million during prime time.
So, using this, NBC “wins” the morning and late night time slots but loses the day by only having an average of 10 million viewers while CBS averages 30 million.
Plus, advertisers are much more interested in prime time than other times. Per Barbarian’s post there are only 11 million viewers during the early morning news hours. IIRC the average number of prime time viewers is around 150 million (no cite and I’m sure someone will be along to correct me shortly). So, would you rather have 90% of an audience of 11 million or 90% of an audience of 150 million?
I’d disagree with this. Friends was America’s #1 show after Seinfeld left the air. When they were still on the air, NBC was still at or near the top of the charts.
I think it was the loss of Friends, and the inability to develop a new show while Friends was on the air which could replace it as the MSTV anchor once Friends went black, that put NBC in this situation.
Also, while it wasn’t “Must See TV”, NBC lost Fraiser at around the same time. So NBC lost 3 of its highest rated shows in the span of a couple years. That’s gotta hurt.
I’ve heard that NBC is considering moving “My Name is Earl” and perhaps “The Office” to Thursdays to try to reclaim that night (I hope so, because when its on against a new episode of “House”, those two shows get taped, even though I love them so).
This is going to be about personal taste, but looking at their weekly prime-time line up for the coming (sweeps) week, is underwhelming: Law&Order clones 4 out of 7 evenings. Martha Stewart, Medium, Joey, The Office, and old,old West Wing and ER.
While the ABC schedule isn’t very exciting, they do have the hit shows du jour, Lost and Housewives, as opposed the the hit shows of the mid to late 90’s (E.R. '94 and West Wing '99).
CBS has all the C.S.I. clones and I think the original is still the #1 scripted show in the U.S. I guess survivor is still cranking out ratings.
If FOX really performs better than NBC, that’s a big surprise. The have the O.C. and Simpsons / Family Guy and maybe COPS pull in enough ratings on Saturdays, but the rest of the schedule is barren.
Anyway, this list is slightly skewed because of 1) repeats and 2) the World Series, but note that CBS has 11 of the top 20 shows (and 7 of the top 10). ABC has 5, Fox 2 and NBC 2 but NBC’s highest ranked show (one of the Law and Orders) was #15.
The World Series obviously helped Fox, but NBC is clearly #4 according to this list.