ABC Dances Away With First Week Of Sweeps
After a season-long winning streak, CBS stumbles without 'NCIS'
For the first seven full weeks of the 2010-11 season, CBS was king. But on the first weeks of November sweeps -- when ratings really matter to advertiser -- the crown instead has passed to ABC.
And even worse, come this weekend, CBS' seven-week winning streak could come to an end as well.
ABC averaged a 7.3 rating/12 share over the first week of November sweeps to win the week, finishing well ahead of CBS' 6.8/11 after the network chose not to run "NCIS" and "NCIS: Los Angeles" on election night.
ABC took advantage of the situation and aired an extended version of "Dancing With the Stars" to its best Tuesday ratings of the year, picking up a 10.0/16 in the first hour and a 12.3/18 in the second, according to Fast National overnight ratings from The Nielsen Co. In one Tuesday 8 p.m. airing earlier this year, "Dancing" earned just a 7.8/12 while the usual 9 p.m. results show had averaged a 10.4/16 before this past week.
CBS barely cracked the top five, getting in thanks to "The Mentalist" and following that up with "Criminal Minds," "CSI," "Two and a Half Men" and "Big Bang Theory."
The week marked a number of pre-emptions. Fox, for instance, showed only one show this week because of the Major League Baseball World Series. Unfortunately for the network that show was its lowest-rated, "The Good Guys," last Friday, ending in a tie with The CW, which managed just a 1.6/3.
ABC ended up building on its audience from the first week of November sweeps last year, improving 17 percent from the 6.2/10 it earned last year. CBS was down just 3 percent, but was far off the pace to keep its lead going. CBS won the first week of November sweeps last year.
NBC, Fox and The CW were all down compared to the year before. NBC was off nearly 8 percent, Fox was down 58 percent while The CW lost 11 percent of its audience year-over-year.
"Blue Bloods" is surging for CBS, and is the No. 1 new show to kick off sweeps, and is slowly working its way up to the No. 1 new show of the season, a spot currently occupied by "Hawaii Five-0," which has stabilized on Mondays, but can't counteract the growth "Blue Bloods" is experiencing on Fridays.
NBC is no better off this year than it was last year, even minus "The Jay Leno Show." Eight of the 10 bottom shows from the Big Four networks are from NBC to start sweeps.
Top Networks, November Sweeps, Week 1 -- [Audience Loyalty Index rating]
| 1. | ABC | 7.3/12 | [57.2] |
| 2. | CBS | 6.8/11 | [75.2] |
| 3. | NBC | 3.7/6 | [69.6] |
| 4. | Fox | 1.6/3 | [100.0] |
| 4. | The CW | 1.6/3 | [70.5] |
Top 10 Network Shows, November Sweeps, Week 1 -- [ALI]
| 1. | Dancing With the Stars (ABC) | 12.8/19 | [92.1] |
| 2. | Dancing With the Stars (ABC) | 12.3/18 | [86.8] |
| 3. | Dancing With the Stars (ABC) | 11.9/19 | [95.2] |
| 4. | Dancing With the Stars (ABC) | 10.0/16 | [89.0] |
| 5. | The Mentalist (CBS) | 9.0/15 | [96.0] |
| 6. | Criminal Minds (CBS) | 8.6/14 | [96.8] |
| 7. | CSI (CBS) | 8.5/13 | [95.7] |
| 8. | Two and a Half Men (CBS) | 8.2/12 | [94.1] |
| 9. | Big Bang Theory (CBS) | 7.7/13 | [93.4] |
| 10. | Castle (ABC) | 7.6/12 | [96.7] |
Top 10 New Shows, November Sweeps, Week 1 -- [ALI]
| 1. | Blue Bloods (CBS) | 7.3/13 | [89.5] |
| 2. | Mike & Molly (CBS) | 6.8/10 | [91.9] |
| 3. | Hawaii Five-0 (CBS) | 6.7/11 | [84.2] |
| 4. | $#*! My Dad Says (CBS) | 6.6/11 | [87.1] |
| 5. | The Defenders (CBS) | 6.1/10 | [84.6] |
| 6. | Better With You (ABC) | 4.8/8 | [93.0] |
| 7. | Outsourced (NBC) | 3.4/5 | [79.5] |
| 8. | School Pride (NBC) | 1.6/3 | [93.0] |
| 9. | Nikita (CW) | 1.6/2 | [85.1] |
| 10. | Hellcats (CW) | 1.3/2 | [77.6] |
Bottom 10 Big Four Network Shows, November Sweeps, Week 1 -- [ALI]
| 1. | School Pride (NBC) | 1.6/3 | [93.0] |
| 1. | The Good Guys (Fox) | 1.6/3 | [94.1] |
| 3. | The Apprentice (NBC) | 2.4/4 | [80.9] |
| 4. | Chuck (NBC) | 3.2/5 | [92.7] |
| 5. | Community (NBC) | 3.3/5 | [89.9] |
| 6. | Outsourced (NBC) | 3.4/5 | [79.5] |
| 7. | America's Funniest Home Video (ABC) | 3.5/6 | [89.5] |
| 8. | Undercovers (NBC) | 3.8/6 | [76.1] |
| 9. | Extreme Makeover (ABC) | 4.1/7 | [85.2] |
| 10. | Biggest Loser (NBC) | 4.2/7 | [96.0] |
Fast Nationals usually provide a snapshot of what Americans are watching by pulling numbers from the top urban markets that include both live viewing and same-day timeshifted viewing. A rating point generally represents more than 1.1 million households while the share indicates the percentage of televisions turned on that was tuned to the specific program. These numbers typically shift when final ratings are issued.
Data collected from The Nielsen Co., as distributed by Zap2it. BlipNetwork tracks non-news, non-event programming, and figures for this story reflect airing of new episodes only. For more information on the Audience Loyalty Index, click here.
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