Top 10 Scripted Cable Series Sorted By Total Viewers (A18-49 in brackets)
1. The Closer (TNT) – 6.94m (1.5)
2. Rizzoli & Isles (TNT) – 6.61m (1.4)
3. Burn Notice (USA) – 5.69m (1.6)
4. Royal Pains (USA) – 5.53m (1.7)
5. Covert Affairs (USA) – 5.33m (1.7)
6. True Blood (HBO) – 5.09m (3.0)
7. Hannah Montana Forever (DSNY) – 4.74m (0.9)
8. Sonny With A Chance (DSNY) – 4.47m (0.8)
9. Jonas LA (DSNY) – 4.23m (0.8)
10. White Collar (USA) – 4.10m (1.3)
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Other Cable Ratings:

A&E – The Glades – 3.10m (0.8)
AMC – Mad Men – 2.22m (0.8)
AMC – Rubicon – 1.20m (0.2)
USA – WWE Raw 9pm – 4.52m (1.7)
USA – WWE Raw 10pm – 4.81m (1.8)
SPIKE – TNA Impact – 1.63m (0.7)

ABC Family:
Secret Life of the American Teenager – 2.71m (1.1)
* W18-34 – 2.9, T12-17 – 3.2
Huge – 1.37m (0.6)
* W18-34 – 1.3, T12-17 – 1.3
Pretty Little Liars – 2.55m (0.9)
* W18-34 – 2.2, T12-17 – 3.5
Make It Or Break It – 1.75m (0.6)
* W18-34 – 1.3, T12-17 – 2.3

MTV:
Jersey Shore – 5.03m (2.5)
* W18-34 – 4.6
Teen Mom – 3.21m (1.7)
*W18-34 – 4.0
Real World – 2.04m (1.2)
* W18-34 – 2.3
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Network Rankings:

In total viewers, USA was dominant again with 3.39m viewers in primetime. Disney was second on 2.83m, TNT third with 2.45m, FOX News fourth with 1.92m and Discovery came fifth with a primetime average of 1.63m. Among adults 18-49, USA was even more dominant with a 1.0 rating. TNT, Discovery and TBS followed on 0.9 ratings with A&E fifth on 0.6.

CBS was lowest with adults 18-49 on a 1.4 rating (but top with viewers - 6.08m). FOX was lowest with viewers (4.61m) but top with adults 18-49 (1.7).
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TNT fielded 7 hours of original drama this week and while its Monday line-up tops the viewing charts, it's not enough to get past USA overall. USA also has the benefit of being stronger in the key demo's.

Discovery's success was fuelled by over a dozen hours of original content as part of their annual "Shark Week" programming event.

MTV's good summer continues (at least for their reality series). Jersey Shore was almost level with last weeks premiere and Teen Mom is a great success for them as well. They finished 6th in the cable ratings among adults 18-49 with a 0.5 rating, beating The CW.

ABC Family have had mixed fortunes. Pretty Little Liars has possibly not grown as they would have hoped but it's still a good hit for them. Huge is flopping and Make It Or Break It isn't doing much better.

Mad Men lost out to Hannah Montana among adults 18-49 but the appalling ratings for AMC's new series, Rubicon, makes Mad Men look good. So long as the Emmy's keep coming, Mad Men will keep broadcasting (it also benefits from a very affluent audience).

Among the broadcast networks, Big Brother had a good week (2.4 - 2.4 - 2.5) and is up vs the last 2 seasons. The Bachelorette finale topped all viewing & demo's. America's Got Talent recovered to 2.8/2.9 for the week but an increase for Hell's Kitchen (3.2) kept AGT down in 3rd behind it and The Bachelorette. So You Think You Can Dance continues to struggle with a miserable 1.8 rating on Thursday.
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Source: twitter.com/travisyanan

Ah thanks, it sounds pretty good, lol.

How did you arrive at 30%? I don't expect the audience decline would be anywhere near as dramatic as a show transferring over from BBC One or ITV1. I think the drop would be closer to 15-20%.

As you know Im a huge fan of BB, BUT I think that having it on Five will be the best (but for it to return in 2 years time rather than next year), so May 2012 on Five IMO would be best. C4 is awful, it really is, BB has been treated as shite since 2008.

C4 IMO ruined it by axing the LF in the first place. I think it would be best to have it on Five, and tbh Five needs ratings badly, 2.3-2.5m+ overnights each night would be something Five would want very much.

I think ending BB for good would signal the end of the Daily Star and Heat to be honest, those ar ethe only 2 media sources that breathe BB still... so they wouldnt want BB to go, especially Heat.

Whoa, I didn't realise HM did so well in America, I actually thought Disney was quite low down in Cable ratings but it seems to be one of the best.

On Five it would probably get an 8-10% audience share which would equate to 1.5-2.5m which wouldn't be too bad. It isn't far off that figure now.


Live feed was never an issue. It didn't stop CBB7 rating so high, and it hasn't stopped BB11 rating so low. If the live feed thing is to be believed, this series should be getting 3.5m+ every night which it simply isn't.

The only problem is that it has been under constraints from Channel 4. It isn't being treated any worse now than it was back in 2002. If anything its actually being treated better.

Yeah, perhaps 30% is a bit much. Obviously the transfer from C4 to C5 wouldn't be as bad as BBC1/ITV1 to C5. Looking at the numbers, Neighbours was down about 40% once it settled on Five. Based on that, I think BB would be down about 20% (similar to what you've suggested), settling at 1.5-2.0m rather than the 2.0-2.5m it's getting at the moment.

No it hasn't. No broadcaster would have treated Big Brother as well as C4 has.

Shafting BB to the 8pm slot various times isnt being treated well, lets me honest... they move dit for Sex Education Show and Indian Summer to make it face against the soaps.

It should be I agree, but I guess it doesnt matter now.
As Davina said on that Behind the scenes BB before BB11 launched, since BB5, the series has been swimming in a pool of negativity and most things about it being said is negative, and now the force of negativity is too strong, has affected C4 and the fans.

And moving to Five will make it pretty much the same as the C4 ratings, I doubt ratings will drop drastically just because its on Five, if it loses audience iot will probably be a bit.

Five do need a show that gets more than 2m(when US imports arent airing), with BB they should secure 2m+ which tbh would be quite good for Five.... its still good for C4, besides Property Ladder, CDWM and lets just say one off things as in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, C4 need a big show.... i know BB doesnt do this as much as befor ebut its still great for C4,

Ugly Betty's 1st Season was watched by around 4m, and the 3rd episode of S1 was watched by 5.2m... now it gets what? less than 2m? Of course C4 is dying a death.

I see, thanks for that.

C4 have treated BB very well. They moved it to 8pm to try out a few shows that could outlive BB, the same in which any broadcaster would. Why would C4 damage potential new hits just so BB can get an extra 0.5m for a few nights?

BB's audience will follow the show around the schedules most nights. It isn't a recent thing where it has suddenly started to be moved. It isn't treating it badly, its just Channel 4 not giving Big Brother priority over the schedules- which when its been axed why should they? And it has been nearing the end of its C4 life for quite some time, so Channel 4 have needed to find new hits.

Some channels wouldn't even bother showing later series if they didn't want to and would postpone them indefinitely until the contract expires. Channel 4 have.

Disney is generally 2nd behind USA (with ESPN coming in and out depending on whether or not its football season). They've got quite a few strong series which also repeat well. Special programming (crossovers, original movies) can rate 8m+. However, Nickelodeon have the most popular kids series with iCarly. Kids TV is big business in the US.


I think the fact that the show is billed as ending this summer is going to make a huge difference. I'm not sure viewers will come back if Five show it next summer. While the tasks have often been great this year, it still feels like a show which has reached the end.

Scheduling wise, C4 haven't been great the past few years (not just since they cancelled it). They overextended it in 2006, they move it around all over the place, even to 8pm or to 11pm. They persist with 75 minute shows which finish well after 11pm on weeknights. They continually failed to do anything about the struggling second Friday eviction show when merging the 2 shows could have helped and of course, they now monitor the show so closely that there can never be any controversy due to their "public service" remit. For a show which thrived on controversy, that has been a problem.

I doubt Channel 4 could afford to postpone the series even if they wanted to. Massive financial penalties would no doubt be part of the problem not to mention filling 100+ hours on short notice.

It didn't lose any viewers. In fact, IIRC it gained viewers when it was at 8pm.

Irrelevant. Ugly Betty's ratings fell across the world as the series went on. It fell from 11 million to 5 million in the US.

I can only laugh at "C4 is dying a death". Their programming has been far stronger this year than it has been for some time and that's been reflected in the decent ratings it's been scoring at 9pm this year. They're only going up in terms of programme creativity right now IMO.

It DID lose viewers at 8pm, it got 2.0m, 2.2m and 2.3m (when the week before and after was getting 2.6-2.7m for HL shows).

I mean dying a death as in there is a lot of dead shows on C4 tbh that could be movd for new programming. Im a massive fan of Hollyaoks but it dips under 1m at times now... thats not good, loads of shows could be axed on C4 to make room for other ones.

I think Big Brother would be a good thing for Channel Five, if they insist on the makers going back to basics, the way it was for the first couple of years. I've never been keen on the part Big Brother/part Generation Game mish-mash of recent years.

As for last night's ratings, The Deep is still rating incredibly well for what it is (Bonekickers on a submarine). I always thought Bonekickers was harshly treated by people who didn't realise it was meant to be surreal and borderline spoof.

Millionaire starting to tail off again, but that's to be expected.

Completely agree.

Have never understood the animosity towards C4 - no other broadcaster would have stood by the show like they did.

And I can already envisage all the naysayers literally begging for the show to return to C4 once they see what Five (or is it Channel 5 again?) ends up doing with it.

Interestingly the news channels had a poor week in the last set of official ratings (w/e 1st August). Sky News' weekly reach slipped below 5m for the first time since early December and was 22% below the average of 6.24m for the year-to-date, whilst BBC News recorded its lowest weekly reach since February.

BB9/BB10/CBB7 style would be best for them imo instead of completely back to basics. I don't think viewers would take to that, and there is a very good reason it hasn't been like that since 2003.


After the race row it undoubtedly became a show targetted at a younger audience and this was before the £60m contract even started. If C4 didn't want BB anymore they could have pulled the plug then and had the £180m back, putting the funds back into drama aquisitions which they ditched in favour of BB. I don't understand why people think its been treated badly either.

I don't think ratings really are strong enough to justify Five picking up BB. It would easily fall sub-2m again on Five, and frankly though they have a few stinkers in the 10pm slots (JLC, I'm looking at you), they have a lot of content which can bring in 2m+ anyhow.


BB needs a break, and a quick revival on Channel 5 is in no-ones interests. However the format still has legs - just a shame producers waited until the last C4 series to be bold enough to make the changes which fans have been crying out for since as early as BB8.

But The Sex Education Show rated higher than a normal Big Brother week, so in hindsight, it was a good move.


Unsurprising - there really hasn't been any big news stories for the past few weeks.

What changes? The main change is the editing and other changes such as save & replace and allowing them to do tasks in front of the crowd (essentially forgetting all about the concept of Big Brother) is basically sending the show back a few years, and both mimick the main criticisms of Big Brother in the past few years- messing with nominations and contact with the outside world.

Five picking up BB is about more than just the ratings, its about driving newspaper sales for the Daily Star etc.

And massive congratulations to BBC for changing their schedule on 21st August so Casualty is, oh, directly vs The X Factor:

18:10 - 101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow
19:10 - Tonight's the Night
20:00 - Lottery
20:10 - Casualty
21:00 - John Bishop's Britain
21:30 - ???
22:30 - Match of the Day

Also, anyone know why Holby City is on twice in Week 24? (Tue 20:00 and Wed 19:30) EastEnders by the way is still labelled as 20:00 on the Thursday in that week, even though that's wrong as there's also this:

- Cars Cops & Criminals returns on Tuesday 24th @ 22:35
- Great British Waste Menu on Wednesday 25th @ 20:30 to 22:00
- DIY SOS returns on Thursday 26th @ 20:00
- My Family paired with Outnumbered repeats from Friday 27th @ 21:00

Erm, a 90 minute documentary?

what are you talking about

Its on against Magic Number & 30 Years...

It is also the last episode before the "summer break" which will probaly only be 2 or 3 weeks this year.