It has an unbelievable pull on the American television audience. Part Mark Harmon…part perfect drama structure…part ingenious casting…part great storytelling, ‘NCIS’ is this country and the world’s top viewed police drama. It powers Tuesdays on CBS. At 8P, it pulled another amazing number by reaching 19.41 million viewers (the exact same number as last season on this comparable date) and a tremendous 20 share of audience. Think about that for a second. 20% of all Americans who have the endless possibility of selection tuned into this program last night. At 9P, its successor, ‘NCIS:LA’ doesn’t disappoint either. As with its lead in, it is #1 in its time period and this week pulled in 15.29 million (again the same as last season), beating the season finale of ‘The Voice’ on NBC. At 10P, ‘Person Of Interest’ drew 12.1 million viewers, some 23% ahead of last year’s comparable program in this time period (‘Vegas’).
NBC was the only other network to even consider challenging CBS, finishing some 4 million viewers behind. At 8P, ‘The Biggest Loser’ drew 6.99 while at 8P, ‘The Voice’ delivered its season finale and averaged 13.81 million over its two hour period, 203,000 fewer viewers than last season.
ABC was a distant fourth with their 8P program, ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’ drawing 3.19 million viewers and at 9P, ‘The Goldbergs’ in a rerun, pulling in 3.2 million viewers, the highest number on The Alphabet Network this night. At 930P, ‘Trophy Wife’ dropped off of the charts with 2.44 million while at 10P, ‘What Would You Do?’ pulled in 2.48 million.
FOX started the evening at 8P with a rerun of ‘Dads’ and drew 2.41, The Animal Network of Broadcasting’s highest number of the evening. When it begins that badly, the only thing you can do is turn off the lights. No viewers…no advertisers. NO advertisers…no revenue. No revenue…no business. At 830, the much ballyhooed ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ in a rerun drew 1.86 million. A large number of cable programs on Tuesday did better than this. At 9P, ‘New Girl’ rerun drew 1.5 million while at 930P, ‘The Mindy Project’ rerun had 1.41 million viewers.
The CW was an all rerun network as well as 8P’s, ‘The Originals’ drew 940,000 viewers and at 9P, ‘Supernatural’ in a rerun drew 940,000 viewers.
Of note in late night, NBC’s ‘The Tonight Show with Jay Leno’ drew its biggest audience in four months with a 3.5/9. ‘David Letterman’ drew 2.7/7 while ‘Live with Jimmy Kimmel’ drew 1.9/5. On NBC, ‘Jimmy Fallon’ drew 1.7/6 at 1235A. ‘Craig Ferguson’ drew 1.3/5 while ‘Nightline’ on ABC drew
For the record, CBS was #1 with 15.599 million viewers (740,000 more viewers than last season on this comparable day) and a 10.7 rating with a 17 share of audience. NBC was #2 with 11.538 million and a 7.6/13. The rest of the networks really didn’t place…they simply showed. Univision was #3 with 2.893 million viewers and a 1.5/2 while ABC finished #4 with 2.829 million (down 1.34 million less than on the comparable day last season) and had a 1.9/3 while FOX finished with 1.793 million (down 140,000 from last year) and a 1.4/2. The CW with 937,000 viewers, down some 500,000 viewers from last year (0.7/1) and Telemundo finished with and a 0.8/1.
ACROSS THE POND:
BBC One’s ‘Last Tango In Halifax’ was the #1 program in the UK on Tuesday evening. At 9P, it drew 5.79 million viewers (24.8% share of audience). At 935P, ‘The Matt Lewis Christmas Awards’ drew 1.89 million (15%).
ITV’s ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ drew 3.1 million viewers and a 14.2% share at 730P. It added 411,000 viewers (2.1%) on ITV+1.
BBC Two at 8P had ‘The Great British Bake Off’ and it did well. It pulled in 2.93 million viewers (13.5%) while at 9P, ‘Pilgrimage with Simon Reeve’ had 1.35 million viewers (5.8%). ‘Hebburn’ drew 834,000 viewers (4.4%) at 10P.
OVERTHESHOULDERMEDIA 