Ratings Race: 'The Bachelorette' Bounces Back, NBC Scores With Changes

At least ABC (2.6/8, 8028 million) has 'The Bachelorette,' earning them another Monday victory. Of their new summer series, only 'Rookie Blue' has scored success, picking up a renewal already, and only 'The Bachelorette' and 'Wipeout' are bringing in any numbers worth getting excited about.

CBS (1.8/5, 6.385 million) continues to impress with a solid lineup of repeats, while NBC (1.4/4, 4.961 million) improved across the night with a few key schedule changes this week. After banishing 'Persons Unknown' to Saturdays, NBC found that audiences would rather watch a repeat of 'America's Got Talent,' while 'Dateline NBC' found its audience on yet another night.

'The Good Guys' continues to slide, dragging FOX (1.4/4, 4.576 million) down with it. At a 1.1 in the 18-49 demo, its hard to see FOX sticking with it long in the fall. The CW (0.3/1, .697 million) stuck with their tiny little loyal audience for 'Gossip Girl' and '90210.'

8:00

'The Bachelorette' (3.2/10, 9.536 million) recovered from the holiday last weekend on ABC, easily matching its rating from two weeks ago. The news wasn't as good for FOX's 'Lie to Me' (1.8/6, 5.609 million), which was in repeats last week. It slipped 20 percent in the 18-49 demo from its most recent new episode, while it slipped to its lowest level of the summer in total viewers.

Ratings continued to ease downward for reruns of CBS's 'How I Met Your Mother' (1.5/5, 4.577 million) and 'Rules of Engagement' (1.7/5, 5.133 million). With CBS running them Mondays and Wednesdays, maybe the audience is getting exhausted.

NBC tried out a repeat of 'America's Got Talent' (1.3/4, 5.177 million) for the first time on Monday in place of struggling 'Persons Unknown,' which has been banished to Saturdays. The move worked, as NBC was up 38 percent in the demo and 43 percent in viewers from the 8 o'clock hour last week. The CW stuck with repeats of '90210' (0.4/1, .852 million).

9:00

As expected, ABC claimed the hour with the second half of 'The Bachelorette' (3.3/9, 9.972 million). On CBS, 'Two and a Half Men' (2.3/7, 7.734 million) and 'The Big Bang Theory' (2.3/6, 7.720 million) remain a potent combination, even in repeats and despite their viewership sliding throughout the summer. It'll be interesting to see how they fare when separated; 'Big Bang' is off to anchor Thursdays.

NBC had mixed results, slipping a tenth in the demo from last week with 'Last Comic Standing' (1.7/5, 4.701 million), while at the same time hitting a total viewer high not seen in a month. 'The Good Guys' (1.1/3, 3.543 million) just keep proving worse and worse for FOX, down another tenth in the demo, and losing 17 percent of viewers since its last new showing two weeks ago. The CW barely registered with a repeat of 'Gossip Girl' (0.2/1, .544 million).

10:00

ABC and CBS split the hour, with the Alphabet claiming the demo on the strength of 'True Beauty' (1.8/5, 6.046 million), which hit a new high in total viewers. The Eye took the top spot in viewers with a steady repeat of 'CSI: Miami' (1.6/5, 6.569 million). With 'Last Comic' back to a single hour, NBC went with a rare Monday edition of 'Dateline NBC' (1.3/4, 5.007 million), matching previous airings of the newsmagazine.

Adults 18-49


Viewers + SD




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.

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