Ratings News - 1st April 2011

Prime-Time Metered Market Thursday Ratings:
More Victory for Idol-Ignited Fox

Thursday 3/31/11
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 8.0/13
ABC 6.5/10
NBC 1.8/ 3
CW 0.8/ 1

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-Percent Change From the Year-Ago Evening (Thursday, April 1, 2010):
Fox: +102, CBS: - 7, NBC: -47, Fox: -51, CW: -60

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-Yesterday's Winners:
American Idol (Fox), Grey's Anatomy (ABC), The Mentalist (CBS)

-Yesterday's Losers:
Perfect Couples (NBC), Mobbed (Fox)

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-Ratings Breakdown:
Led by American Idol, it was an easy overnight Thursday victory for Fox, which beat second-place CBS by 2.7 household rating points. Third overall was ABC, followed by lowly NBC and The CW. The 1.8 household rating for NBC is one of its worst averages for a Thursday night in the history of the network.

Blockbuster American Idol scored a considerable 14.7 rating/24 share in the overnights from 8-9 p.m. In place of regularly scheduled Bones at 9 p.m. was special Mobbed, hosted by Howie Mandel, which dipped to third with a 6.8/11. Comparably, that put retention out of the 8:30 p.m. portion of American Idol (15.7/25) of only 43 percent. Consider this a "loser."

Despite facing Idol, CBS' The Big Bang Theory was on the 8 p.m. map with an 8.2/13 in the overnights. Next was relocated Rules of Engagement (#2: 5.6/ 9 at 8:30 p.m.), which is losing too much steam to likely warrant a renewal, followed by CSI (#2: 8.0/12) and The Mentalist (#1: 9.2/15) from 9-11 p.m. At this point, CBS really needs to think about what to do with CSI. Personally, I would move The Mentalist to 9 p.m. next fall into a new drama, and send CSI back to its original home, Fridays at 9 p.m., for one final season.

ABC had nothing unusual to report with its combination of Wipeout (#3: 3.9/ 6), Grey's Anatomy (#1: 9.7/15) and spin-off Private Practice (#2: 5.9/10). With the exception of canceled Perfect Couples, NBC was in all repeats last night. The network finished a distant fourth overall from 8-10 p.m. with its line-up of a repeat of Community (1.6/ 3), aforementioned Perfect Couples (1.5/ 2) and repeats of The Office (2.2/ 3) and Parks and

Recreation (1.8/ 3), and third from 10-11 p.m. with repeats of 30 Rock (1.9/ 3) and another episode of The Office (1.6/ 3). The CW capped off the evening with repeats of The Vampire Diaires (0.9/ 1) and Nikita (0.8/ 1). With one month to go before the May sweeps, expect a flood of repeats to populate April.

Source: Nielsen Media Research data (R = repeat)

Source: pifeedback