It was the Winter Olympics which again led NBC to victory on Saturday.
Saturday, 02.22.14
It was simply no contest on Saturday as NBC with the ‘Winter Olympics’ finished #1 for the 17th straight night as it drew 12.85 million viewers. It peaked at 10P with 14.05 million viewers. At 11P, the debut of Minnie Driver’s new series, ‘About A Boy’ was viewed by 8.27 million and a 2.2 rating among A18-49, per Nielsen. Comparably, the 10:30 p.m. portion of the ‘Winter Olympics’ averaged 12.97 million viewers and a 2.9 in the A18-49 demo. Since “About a Boy” aired outside of primetime, this initial performance will not be included in the averages for the night, week or season. Based on the Nicholas Hornsby book (and 2002 Hugh Grant movie of the same name), the relationship between a bachelor man-child (David Walton) and the young boy who moves in next door is the focus. Minnie Driver is the single mother neighbor. “About a Boy” debuts in its regularly scheduled Tuesday at 9P after ‘The Voice’ and leading into new comedy ‘The Family Fisher’ which will be previewed on Sunday after the Olympic closing ceremony coverage. For a look at ‘About A Boy’, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZOLynA2IBk#t=27.
CBS finished a weak #2 for the evening as at 8P, a rerun of ‘Mike & Molly’ drew 2.51 million viewers while at 830P another rerun of ‘The Crazy Ones’ drew 1.79 million viewers. At 9P, a rerun of ‘CSI’ drew 3.04 million viewers. At 10P, ’48 Hours’ pulled in 3.66 million viewers, tops for the evening on The Tiffany Network and tops for any broadcast network program except the winter games.
ABC presented at 8P, the movie ‘Shrek The Third’ and drew 2.48 million. At 10P, ’20/20′ pulled in 2.21 million viewers.
FOX has the bad luck of presenting two programs nobody really wanted to watch. First, at 8P, ‘The Daytona 500 Bash at the Beach’ drew 1.55 million viewers. Then at 9P, a rerun of ‘The Following’ drew CW-like number with only 833,000 viewers tuning into the Animal Network of Broadcast.
For The Record
NBC was #1 on Saturday with 12.85 million viewers.CBS was #2 with 2.95 million viewers. ABC finished #3 with 2.39 million viewers while FOX came in last with 1.18 million viewers on Saturday.
For six seasond (1981-87) ‘Gimme A Break’ ran on NBC and starred Nell Carter.
Today In TV History
On this date in 1985, the TV show ‘Gimme a Break’ was broadcast LIVE before a studio audience. It was the first TV sitcom to be seen LIVE since the 1950s.
Welcome new visitors from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the UK, France, Jersey, Germany, Australia and Argentina.
‘The Voice UK’ is back and won the ratings race in the UK on Saturday.
Across The Pond
BBC One had ‘The Voice UK’ and it edged ahead on Saturday to top the evening in the UK. With 7.25 million viewers with 31.2% of the available audience, while it has been hampered with poor ratings in the past, the addition of new judges Ricky Wilson and Kylie Minogue, appear to be picking things up a bit.
ITV at 7P had Ant and Dec’s ‘Saturday Night Takeaway’ which drew 6.48 million viewers and a 27.8% for #2 on the evening.
The England win over Ireland in the ‘6 Nations’ drew 5.15 million viewers and a 33.6% share of the available audience peaked with 7.11 million and 37.6% at 540P. The Italy v Scotland matched averaged 2.25 million (22.4%).
‘Doc Martin’ Tops In Australia on Saturday.
Down Under
While Seven was the top network on Saturday in Australia boosted by news and a big movie, ABC1 had three of the top five programs including #1 which was ‘Doc Martin’ which pulled in 1,147,000 viewers with 341,000 watching in Sydney; 330,000 in Melbourne; in Brisbane, 202,000 viewers; In Adelaide, 128,000 watched and in Perth, 147,000 tuned in. The #3 program was ‘ABC News’ with 856,000 viewers. The #5 program was ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’ which was viewed by 826,000.
Seven which drew 28.7% share of the available audience on Saturday, behind the power of news, had the #2 program, ‘Seven News’ with 918,000 viewers. The #6 show of the evening was the movie, ‘The Lion King’ which drew 669,000. The #7 program was another movie, ‘Knocked Up’ which drew 366,000 viewers.
Nine had the #4 program which was ‘Nine News’ and it drew 847,000 viewers. #8 was ‘Getaway’ which drew 368,000 viewers. The #10 program was ‘World Club Challenge Rugby League’ which drew 355,000 viewers.
Ten had the #7 program, ‘Ten Eyewitness News’ which drew 396,000 viewers.
As you can see, no matter where people were watching television everywhere, they were…
Switching Channels!
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