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TV Season Scoreboard: The Ecstasy Of Ratings Gold
by Dan Gomez, Access Hollywood assistant research director
Now that the 2006-2007 TV season is over, let’s fire up the ratings scoreboard and see who walks away with ratings gold. FOX gets to gloat thanks to “American Idol”.
The popular talent show was plagued this season with a rather unexciting group of contestants (sorry, Sanjaya) but enough people watched to make “Idol” the number one and number two shows for the season. Wednesday’s results show was seen by an average of 30 million viewers to take the top spot while Tuesday’s performance show was seen by an average of 29.5 million to take second.
Both of “Dancing with the Stars'” fall and spring editions (performance and results shows), “CSI,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “House,” “Desperate Housewives” and “NBC Sunday Night Football” round out the top ten shows of the season.
"Heroes" finished as the most watched new show of the season, ranking 22nd with 13.6 million viewers, followed closely by CBS's James Woods drama "Shark" at 26. ABC's "Ugly Betty" tied with medical stalwart "ER" to rank at number thirty-one, each with an average of 11 million people tuning in. The critically acclaimed but poorly watched Aaron Sorkin drama "Studio 60," which was cancelled, finished the season at 75.
As for the networks, CBS is tops amongst viewers, winning the season with 12.2 million viewers. In fact, this is the fifth consecutive year that CBS has taken the viewer crown. FOX finished in second with 10.2 million while ABC grabbed third and NBC had to settle for fourth place again. If that wasn't bad enough, the Peacock was down from the end of last season by about 1 million viewers. That may explain why the network decided to let go of their Entertainment President Kevin Reilly, who had just signed a new three-year contract three months ago. Hopefully Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff, the two men who were hired to replace Reilly, will fare better come next year at this time.
Well, that's it for this TV season. There looks to be a lot of interesting shows coming our way in the fall. Some will be good, some will be awful and some will die a quick death. And they will all be looking to beat "American Idol".
Here are the top ten shows for the 2006-2007 TV season:
1. American Idol - Wed (FOX) 30 million viewers
2. American Idol - Tues (FOX) 29.5 million viewers
3. Dancing with the Stars - Tues/Fall '06 (ABC) 20.5 million viewers
4. CSI (CBS) 19.8 million viewers
5. Dancing w/Stars - Mon/Spring '07 (ABC) 19.6 million viewers
6. Dancing w/Stars - Wed. results/Fall '06 (ABC) 19 million viewers
7. Grey's Anatomy (ABC) 18.7 million viewers
8. House (FOX) 18.5 million viewers
9. Dancing w/Stars - Tues. results/Spring '07 (ABC) 18 million viewers
10. Desperate Housewives (ABC) 17 million viewers
10. NBC Sunday Night Football (NBC) 17 million viewers
Here are the top five networks for the 2006-2007 TV season:
1. CBS 12.2 million viewers
2. FOX 10.2 million viewers
3. ABC 9.7 million viewers
4. NBC 8.7 million viewers
5. CW 3.1 million viewers
SOURCE: Nielsen Media Research
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