Ratings Race: 'The Gates' Steadies for ABC, 'Scoundrels' Keeps Slipping

Fox (1.4/4, 3.078 million) played their typical Sunday dance, taking the night in the 18-49 demo while at the same time coming in dead last in total viewers. That "Animation Domination" lineup might not bring in the biggest audience, but it's the "right" kind of viewers, according to the advertisers.

First in viewers, then, was CBS (1.3/4, 6.39 million), enjoying a successful summer launch for 'Big Brother,' as well as the transplanted power of Thursday night's 'The Mentalist.' NBC (1.2/4, 4.936 million) mixed up the night as well, shifting 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent to 8 PM ET to make room for a repeat of 'America's Got Talent.'

ABC (1.1/3, 4.079 million) got mixed, but really bad news. While 'The Gates' seems to have finally steadied in the ratings, albeit at a pretty low number, 'Scoundrels' just keeps dropping and dropping. At least 'America's Funniest Home Videos' had its best outing in more than a month, so it wasn't a total loss.

7PM

'America's Funniest Home Videos' (1.4/5, 5.27 million) did more than just rebound from last week's July 4th doldrums. The repeat was up 43 percent in the 18-49 demo, and 27 percent in total viewers from last week, those numbers were the best for the show since before the NBA Finals. CBS claimed the viewer crown with a new '60 Minutes' (0.9/3, 6.969 million), despite a terrible 18-49 showing.

Fox and NBC were even from their pre-holiday numbers with repeats of 'American Dad' (0.9/3, 1.96 million) and another burn-off of 'Sons of Tucson' (0.7/2, 1.62 million) for Fox, and 'Dateline NBC' (1.0/4, 4.897 million) for the Peacock.

8PM

The Sunday edition of 'Big Brother' (2.3/7, 6.974 million) improved 15 percent in the demo from its year ago rating and easily took the top spot for the night in both categories. As usual, Fox performed well in the demo with repeats of 'The Simpsons' (1.7/4, 3.74 million) and 'The Cleveland Show' (1.5/5, 3.39 million).

'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition' (1.3/4, 4.81 million) returned almost exactly to its two-weeks-ago level, while 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent' (0.9/3, 4.902 million) was off a tenth from its two-weeks-ago level in the demo while rising 12 percent in total viewers.

9PM

Fox was first in the demo with back-to-back reruns of 'Family Guy' (1.8/5, 4.042 million & 1.7/5, 3.716 million). 'Scoundrels' (0.8/2, 2.99 million) returned after a week off, falling 27 percent in the demo and 18 percent in viewers. At this rate, 'Scoundrels' may become the latest show to not air all of its episodes on the Alphabet.

CBS was tops in viewers with a repeat of 'The Mentalist' (1.0/3, 5.93 million), replacing 'Cold Case' in the hour without a noticeable difference in the numbers for CBS. It is, however, way off from 'The Mentalist' repeats airing on its regular night of Thursdays. NBC kicked off a two-hour repeat of 'America's Got Talent' (1.3/4, 4.825 million), improving the hour from two weeks ago, when it was the second half of 'Dateline NBC,' by more than 20 percent.

10PM

The gambit paid off even more in the next hour, as 'America's Got Talent' (1.5/5, 5.123 million) took the demo title for NBC, leaving a repeat of CBS's 'Cold Case' (1.1/3, 5.69 million) to take the viewers title. 'AGT' brought in about the same number of viewers as 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent' did two weeks ago, but it improved 13 percent in the demo.

ABC got better news from 'The Gates' (1.0/3, 3.25 million), which slipped only a tenth in the demo, and stayed even in viewers. Never underestimate the power of vampires to keep even a struggling show afloat.

Adults 18-49





Below is the format we use for showing the ratings data with a quick explanation of each part
Example: 'Show' (Demo/Share, Viewers+SD) [Network-Time]

Show - The name of the show. (R) indicates a repeat. (S) indicates a special presentation. (M) indicates a movie.
Demo - The percentage of adults aged 18-49 tuned to this show. This is the demographic advertisers desire.
Share - The percentage of adults 18-49 households with their televisions on who are turned to this show.
Viewers+SD - The total viewers including both live viewers and DVR viewers who watched the program the same day (generally by 3 AM). DVR penetration has reached about 24 percent of American households
Network - The network the show aired on.
Time - The show's scheduled start time (this can get skewed for sporting events or other live programming).

Nielsen compiles their ratings from randomly selected representative groups of households. Overnight ratings are tabulated by tracking the channels that are on during each time period in those houses. As such, if a live event interrupts or delays the start of a program in certain areas, this data will not reflect those changes. Also, if a local affiliate chooses not to run a network's program at the scheduled time for some reason, this change will also not be represented. Thus, these figures can be skewed and should only be used as a general guideline. We will do our best to alert you when situations that could affect the accuracy of these figures occurs.

Our thanks to TV by the Numbers for their figures and estimates. If you have any questions about the ratings or what it all means, feel free to hit us up in the comments. We'll be here every day for you.

[Follow @ultraversion21 on Twitter.]