USA Fends Off TNT With Friday-Night Franchise
'Monk,' 'Psych' Help Secure Primetime Win, Despite NBA All-Star Game
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 2/21/2008 12:25:00 AM
It was a big weekend for TNT with the NBA All-Star Game festivities, but not big enough to knock USA Network from the top perch in primetime cable ratings last week.
The “characters” network, riding the strength of Monk and Psych on Friday Feb. 
15, the WWE Monday Night Raw franchise four days earlier and its best performance since 2005 with the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, averaged a 2.4 household rating, according to a Disney ABC Cable Networks Group analysis of Nielsen Media Research data, based on live + same-day calculations.
The win was the seventh straight for USA, according to network officials.
TNT was second for the week of Feb. 11 through Feb. 17, with a 2.2 household ratings average, a mark that was fueled by the top show of the week-- the “drama” network’s coverage of the NBA All-Star game on Feb. 17 that dunked some 6.33 million viewers.
Disney Channel was third with a 1.9 mark, while Fox News Channel and TBS were next, each with a 1.5. Nick at Nite followed with a 1.3.
In rounding out the top 10, there was a logjam among A&E Network, Lifetime Television, Cartoon Network, Hallmark Channel and AMC, all with a 1.1. AMC’s cause was lifted by the 2.5 rating and 3.1 million viewers that watched the Feb. 16 TV premiere of Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima, part of the network’s “Long, Live, Awards, multiplatform programming stunt around Hollywood’s award season.
TNT's presentation of the Feb. 16 NBA Saturday Night showcase, highlighted by Dwight Howard’s phenomenal performance in the Sprite Slam Dunk contest, was third for the week with 5.21 million viewers, behind the 5.6 million that tuned in the penultimate episode of Monk's sixth season.
The 45-minutes All-Star Game preview show was fourth with 5.19 million viewers, ahead of the two WWE Raw hours on Feb. 11. The second-season concluder of Psych notched nearly 4.7 million viewers, good for seventh, ahead of Bravo’s Project Runway, which strutted before 3.83 million watchers on Feb. 13. Nickelodeon picked up the next six, and seven out of eight spaces, with SpongeBob SquarePants episodes on Feb. 16.
Gauged on total-day, Nickelodeon was in its familiar first-place spot with a 1.7 average, 0.5 points above Disney Channel and TNT’s 1.2 apiece. Nick at Nite and USA were next, both with a 1.1 average.
TBS registered a 0.9, while Cartoon Network, its late-night spin-off service Adult Swim, Lifetime and Fox News all scored a 0.8.
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