Disney Rides HSM2 To Top Of Weekly Ratings Charts
Network Dominates Cable and Broadcast Competition
By R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 8/21/2007 7:07:00 AM
Disney Channel won last week’s basic cable prime time ratings race. That’s no surprise given the Aug. 17 record-setting viewership performance of High School Musical 2 and Hannah Montana.
What is remarkable is that Disney’s average 5.8 million viewers for the week of Aug. 13 through Aug. 19 nearly took the weekly ratings prize for all basic and broadcast television networks. The network finished the week behind only CBS 6.7 million and Fox’s 6.0 million viewers, according to an ABC Cable analysis of Nielsen Media Research data.
Disney Channel also aired three of the top five most-watched TV programs in total viewers for week, including the premiere of HSM2, which finished as the top viewed show for the week and set an all-time cable record with 17.2 million viewers.
A preview of Disney’s new animated series Phineas and Ferb finished tied with NBC reality series America’s Got Talent for second place with 10.8 million viewers, while an episode of Hannah Montana finished third with 10.7 million viewers. That episode, which featured an appearance by pop singing group the Jonas Brothers, also set a cable record for most viewed series episode.
CBS’ 60 Minutes rounded out the top five with 9.9 million viewers.
The weekly cable race was no contest, with Disney more than doubling USA Network’s 2.8 million viewers for the week.
In fact, Disney delivered the second largest prime audience for any cable network in recorded history, behind only ESPN's 6.0 million for the week of Dec. 26 2005.
Among all basic cable shows, only Turner Network Television’s Aug. 13 episode of The Closer at number eight was the only non-Disney Channel distributed show to finish in the top10 most viewed shows of the week.
Disney Channel also finished first for the week in all major kid and female demos.
In total viewers, TNT finished third with 2.2 million average viewers, with ESPN (2.0 million), TBS (1.8 million), Cartoon Network (1.6 million) Lifetime (1.5 million), Fox News (1.4 million), Hallmark (1.3 million) and A&E Network (1.2 million) rounding out the top 10.
