USA Leads Cable's Record-Breaking Year
Network Sets Industry Benchmark For Primetime Viewership
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 12/12/2007 8:25:00 AM EST
New York -- This year represents a sea change in terms of ratings’ records for cable, capped by USA Network landing in the No. 1 spot by delivering the largest number of primetime viewers in the medium’s history, Turner Broadcasting’s top researcher said Wednesday.
Cable broke nearly a dozen records in 2007, prompting Jack Wakshlag, Turner’s chief research officer, to characterize the 12-month period as “transformational” for cable, with shows like TNT’s The Closer and TBS’s House of Payne among those shattering former viewing benchmarks.
For example, to date USA has racked up the best total primetime delivery for a cable network in history, with its average of 2.7 million viewers, according to a Turner Research analysis of Nielsen Media Research data.
In addition, 2007 marked the best primetime ever in the adult 18 to 49 demographic for 35 ad-supported cable networks, Wakshlag said during his annual end-of-year ratings briefing for the press at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan.
In another mark, Disney Channel enjoyed the best audience delivery for a movie in cable’s history with its High School Musical 2, which attracted 18.6 million viewers on a live plus seven-day total, according to Nielsen data.
Cable also saw its best audience delivery ever for a scripted drama, an original comedy, a football telecast and a post-season baseball telecast, according to Turner.
TNT’s The Closer ended the year with the best audience deliveries for both a drama and series in the history of basic cable. The Closer averaged 5.9 million households, or 8.1 million total viewers.
Several TBS original comedies – House of Payne and The Bill Engvall Show – racked up the best deliveries ever for basic-cable comedies, averaging 2.04 million and 2.02 million households, respectively.
“This has been a great year for comedy development at TBS,” Wakshlag said.
On the sports side, ESPN enjoyed the best football telecast in the history of cable, with its Dec. 3 Monday Night Football game between the New England and Patriots-Baltimore Ravens, which drew 12.5 million households and some 17.5 million viewers.
TBS scored the best post-season baseball-ratings performance with its telecast of the fourth game of the Division series game between the Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees, with 6.7 million households.
Two other Turner networks, CNN and Cartoon Network, also broke cable records. CNN registered the biggest audience delivery for a primary debate in the history or cable with its Nov. 28 YouTube Republican debate in Florida, with 4.5 million viewers.
And Cartoon Network’s late-night Adult Swim spinoff registered the largest young-adult delivery in the history of cable, with 432,000 adults 18 to 34 and 273,000 men 18 to 34, according to Turner.
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