USA Makes It 10 Straight In Primetime
TNT, Disney, TBS, Fox News Round Out Top 5 In Weekly Ratings
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 3/12/2008 7:03:00 AM
USA Network ran its primetime win streak to 10, claiming cable’s top spot last week.
The “characters” network averaged a 2.1 household rating from March 3 through March 9, well ahead of TNT and Disney Channel, both of which averaged a 1.7 mark, according to a Disney ABC Cable Networks analysis of Nielsen Media Research data.
TBS and Fox News Channel were tied for fourth with a 1.5 mark. Fox News has finished in the top 5, eight out of the past nine weeks.
ESPN, benefiting greatly from its most-watched college basketball game ever, the March 8 North Carolina-Duke contest, grabbed a piece of sixth place, along with Nick at Nite.
The History Channel, whose Ax Men sliced up a strong debut on March 9 with some 3 million viewers, was tied with Hallmark Channel for the eighth spot, each earning a 1.2 average.
There was a logjam for the 10th spot: Lifetime Television, A&E Network, SpikeTV, CNN and TruTV (formerly Court TV) all finished with a 1.1 mark for the week.
Gauged on a total-day basis, Nickelodeon was in its familiar first-place perch, averaging a 1.9 household mark, giving it a 0.7-point cushion over channel-sharer Nick at Nite.
Disney, TNT and USA were next, all with a 1.1 average. Fox News was sixth with a 0.9 average.
Rounding out the top 10 all with 0.8 marks: TBS, Lifetime, Cartoon Network and its spinoff, late-night channel sharer, Adult Swim
The aforementioned UNC-Duke game was cable’s most-watched show of the week with 5.61 million viewers, followed by the fourth-season finale of Bravo’s Project Runway, which strutted before 5.18 million watchers. Taking out WWE’s Monday Night Raw franchise, which accounted for 5.09 million viewers at 10 p.m. on March 3 and 5.09 million in the earlier hour, for USA, it was all SpongeBob SquarePants.
The Nick franchise held the other six shows in the top 10, headed by the 5.28 million watchers at 10 a.m. on March 8.
