It was opening night of the November Sweeps period, the first giant rating period of the new season. However, it happened on halloween and people using television always go trick or treating or out to celebrate the holiday instead of staying home and watching television.
It’s not every night a rerun can be the biggest program on broadcast television. But that is exactly what happened on Thursday as ‘The Big Bang Theory’ on CBS drew 11.56 million viewers on a rerun a 8P. At 830P, ‘The Millers’ ran a new episode and drew 9.57 million (surely will exceed 10 million after Live+7 stats are out) while ‘The Crazy Ones’, starring Robin Williams, finished second for the first time this season at 9P with only 8.06 million viewers. Another rerun of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ ran at 930P with 8.39 million which gave just enough push to second year program, ‘Elementary’, at 10P to make it tops at that hour with 9.35 million viewers. This is a program that is finding its legs and could be a power on The Tiffany Network for years to come. Without question, based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character, Sherlock Holmes set in the United States, this Lucy Liu/Jonny Lee Miller duo episode went a long way in drawing the guidelines to this complicated relationship. It is an episode not to be missed OnDemand.
ABC began the evening with a rerun as well. This time it was the classic, ‘It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’. It drew 6.96 million but hats off to The Alphabet Network for bringing it back, year after year. It is a classic for a reason. Charles M. Schultz and Vince Guaraldi make magic. Thank you ABC for running it. At 9P, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ powered to the top spot on broadcast as it puled in 8.88 million viewers. At 10P, ‘Scandal’ finished just behind ‘Elementary’ with 9.23 million.
The NFL Network drew 6.479 million viewer for the ‘Thursday Night Football’ game with the Cincinnati Bengals meeting the Miami Dolphins in Miami. The Dolphins pulled off a victory before half empty stands in overtime. At that time, the game had peaked with 6,735 million viewers, just before Midnight.
NBC began with a ‘Saturday Night Live Halloween’ show that finished with 5.51 million at 8P. It was the only program on this evening that finished ahead of the program in the same time slot the previous year. It was up over ‘The Voice’ rerun and drew 30.8% ahead in the time period. Then came ‘Sean Saves the World’ at 9P but didn’t. It drew only 4.11 million. Thanks to FOX and The CW, The Peacock Network finished #4 in this time period. At 930P, ‘The Michael J. Fox Show’ continues to run out its schedule for what appears to be its first and only season, with a 3.62 million viewers. At 10P, ‘Parenthood’ could only draw 3.97 after that disappointing lead in.
FOX. Poor FOX. The World Series finished in six games rather than seven. Game #7 would have fallen on this Thursday evening. That meant they were stuck with Simon Cowell. At 8P, ‘The X Factor’ clip show drew a miserable 3.25 million viewers, a drop of 63.6% compared to this same time a year previous. Then at 9P, an aging ‘Glee’ showed signs that it is all over with 1.96 million, finishing just 37,000 viewers ahead of The CW’s ‘Reign’. That is not good.
TNT, featuring an NBC doubleheader, the first featuring the New York Knicks against the Chicago Bulls drew 2.6 million viewers at 8P. It reached a peak of 3.9 million viewers with a 2.5 US HH rating from 1045-11P. TNT was the most discussed network (broadcast or ccable) thursday night across social media platforms, according to SocialGuide. The game pulled a .93 rating in Chicago to see the Bulls victory and a 5.6 rating in New York. Spike Lee was there with his orange Knick’s cap on the courtside.
The CW got off with ‘The Vampire Diaries’ on Halloween with 2.11 million viewers. At 9P, ‘Reign’ could only muster 1.59 million. The little network that could had another tough evening.
In late night, ‘Leno’ again was #1 with 2.8/7 and ‘Kimmel’ finished #2 with 2.6/7. while ‘David Letterman’ pulled a 2.5/7. At 1235A, ‘Nightline’ on ABC finished #1 with a 1.5/5 followed by ‘Fallon’ and ‘Ferguson’ tied with a 1.3/5. In late late very late at 135A, ‘Carson Daly’ averaged a 0.8/4.
For the record, CBS #1 with 9.380 million viewers for the evening and a 5.9 rating and 10 share; ABC finished #2 with 8.355 million and a 5.3/9; NFL Network was #3 with 6.479 million viewers; NBC finished #4 and drew 4.447 million and a 2.9/5; Univision finished #5 with 2.6 million viewers and a 1.5/2; FOX (#6) had 2.603 million viewers and finished with a 1.7/3; The History Channel was #7 and had 2.484 million viewers on average for the evening. TNT finished #8 and had 2.6 million viewers with a 1.6 HH rating. USA Network #9 was viewed 2.386 million viewers as the latest episodes of ‘White Collar’ and ‘Covert Affair’ were seen. TBS, finishing #10 drew 2.066 million viewers. The CW was #11 by drawing 1.849 million and had a 1.3/2 and Telemundo finished #12 for the evening with a 0.6/1.
ACROSS THE POND: They celebrate Halloween in the UK as well. Overall, it was a very slow night for television viewing. ITV’s ‘British Secret Treasures’ at 830P finished on top with 2.52 million viewers (12.2%). ‘Breathless’ at 9P pulled in 2.12 million (10.6%). BBC One’s ‘Truckers’ dropped 200,000 viewers and finished with 2.10 million viewers (10.4%) at 9P. BBC Two’s ‘Autumnwatch’ finished #2 for the evening with 2.43 million viewers (11.7%) at 8P. At 9P, ‘World’s Busiest Maternity Ward’ drew 1.75 million (8.7%) while at 10P, ‘Mock the Week’ finished with just 1.39 milion (7.8%). Channel 4 at 8P saw ‘Amazing Spaces’ draw 1.3 million (6.6%). A new documentary ‘Bedlam’ at 9P upped the ante and drew 1.45 million (7.2%) while at 10P, ‘Up All Night’ seemed like it with only 818,000 viewers. Channel 5’s ‘Benidorm ER’ drew 850,000 (4.1%) at 8P. At 9P, ‘Countdown to Murder’ finished ahead with 1.03 million (5.1%). ‘Person of Interest’ dropped to 759,000 (4.6%) viewers at 10P. On E4, ‘The Big Bang Theory’ in its season premiere in the UK drew 1.38 million (6.7%) at 830P. Then ‘Drifters’ at 9P dropped to 496,000 viewers or only 2.4% share of the viewing audience. ITV2’s ‘Tricked was viewed by 840,000 (4.2%) at 9P while ‘Celebrity Juice’ brought in about a half a million more viewers at 10P and finished with 1.32 million (7.9%).
As a side note, ‘The X Factor’ finally found a country where it actually was watched. On October 26th, the program was launched in Isreal where it drew 1.1 million viewers with a whopping 42.9% share of audience. It was hosted by supermodel Bar Rafaeli. It was the highest-rated talent show launch in Isreal.
Again, no matter where you lived on this Halloween evening, people were…
Switching Channels!
For continual updates, go to: http://on.fb.me/19hUBIO or http://bit.ly/1bwbPT0
OVERTHESHOULDERMEDIA 