Ratings info for the NBC Christmas Movie!

[Phillip]

Here's a story with a little more perspective on the NBC Friday night ratings...

ABC's "Dinotopia," the last of the broadcast networks' 33 new series to bow this fall, got off to a slow start on Thanksgiving night, finishing well behind its network rivals.

One night later, NBC's family fare -- "It's A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie" -- did much better, while Fox original TV movie "The Brady Bunch in the White House" bombed.

According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, ABC's two one-hour episodes of "Dinotopia" averaged a mere 1.7 rating/5 share in adults 18-49 -- less than half of what NBC, CBS and Fox delivered from 8 to 10. The show, based on the network's successful miniseries of last May, won its block in kids but didn't do much in any other demo, averaging about 6 million viewers.

CBS, which served up three servings of crime to viewers on Thanksgiving, took the night in overall audience (13.2 million) and tied NBC in adults 18-49 (4.2), according to preliminaries, led by the 9 o'clock repeat of "CSI."

NBC did pretty well with its Faith Hill (news) concert special on Thanksgiving (preliminary 4.2/11 in adults 18-49). Earlier in the day, its coverage of the 76th annual "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade" scored a strong 15.0/30 in the top "metered" markets.

MUPPETS MAKE IT

NBC also shone a night later with its original Muppets movie, which delivered the best Friday 18-49 rating from 8 to 10 for any network this season (preliminary 3.8/12). It also led its time period in kids, teens and total viewers (11 million).

At the same time, Fox's original "Brady Bunch" movie averaged a not-so-groovy 1.4/5 in both adults 18-49 and 18-34 and just 3.4 million viewers overall. Apparently, the network made the right decision to keep it out of sweeps, which ended on Wednesday.

Final numbers for the November ratings period, meanwhile, will be released Monday. As previously reported, NBC dominated in key demos, and CBS prevailed by a slim margin in total viewers.

The only key race that still isn't decided is the battle for second in adults 18-49. Based on preliminary estimates for Wednesday, ABC appears to round up to a 4.2, ahead of CBS' 4.1.

Wednesday saw CBS score a victory in adults 18-49 behind a "Survivor" clips show (preliminary 4.4/14) and a special repeat "CSI" at 10 (preliminary 4.5/13). Sandwiched in between, "The Amazing Race" drew its best 18-49 rating of the season (preliminary 4.3/12), leading its hour.

ABC's two-hour "Paul McCartney (news)" averaged a so-so 3.1/9 in adults 18-49, placing third from 9 to 11.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20021202/tv_nm/ratings_1

 

[EmmyMik]

I don't understand a lick of ratings mumbo jumbo, but words like "shoen", "best", and "led" sound good to me!

 

[BoyRaisin2]

Great news! Maybe Henson will do like Hanna-Barbera did and make a bunch of TV movies based on their shows.

Would that be a good or bad thing? Anyway...

 

[Luke]

As i've kinda said previous, it's a really good rating, above average and i'm sure it's what they were expecting and they are all happy. What the article doesn't tell you is that Friday night is one of the slowest in that demograph and that on a special Friday night like the one after thanksgiving you would naturally expect it to score higher than the previous one because it's had specials made for it and 10 million spent on it. You'd also expect it to lead it's time period for kids because the brand is associated with kids and there isn't typically a big audience of them in the time blocks towards the second half of the movie so that doesn't really mean all that much. Great news is they seem to have scored with the teens and the all important 18-30's they want to reach so their methods seem to have worked though we'll find out more next week when the more detailed stuff comes in.

In looking at ratings you need to take the whole picture into consideration - they did great, not of smash hit proportions but really great. I'm kinda glad they didn't air it on a Sunday night in December now because moving to the Friday seems to have done them a big favor. 10 million was spent on this and it was heavily promoted and cleverly scheduled so it's what people would have expected but they can definitely give themselves a pat on the back and hopefully more new projects can come out of this.

 

[Janice & Mokey's Man]

Originally posted by EmmyMik
I don't understand a lick of ratings mumbo jumbo, but words like "shoen" sound good to me!

LOL!!!

Emmy, what are you, as dumb as a BRICK?!

Get it? BRICK?

Ah, go trade your "E" for an "Am"!

LOL!

 

[Phillip]

Here's another blurb with a slightly different take from the Hollywood Reporter...

The Muppets came through for NBC on Friday with a respectable, if not spectacular, showing in the 8-10 p.m. debut of "It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie," which looks like it'll be a holiday perennial for the peacock. "Muppet Christmas" brought in 11 million viewers and 3.8/12, trouncing Fox's competing original telefilm, "The Brady Bunch in the White House" (3.4 million, 1.4/5).

 

[EmmyMik]

Originally posted by Janice & Mokey's Man
LOL!!!

Emmy, what are you, as dumb as a BRICK?!

Get it? BRICK?

Ah, go trade your "E" for an "Am"!

LOL!

To tell you the truth, I can't dance very well. I dance very much like a brick...

 

[murgatoad]

Originally posted by Phillip Chapman
Here's another blurb with a slightly different take from the Hollywood Reporter...

Well, I hope this doesn't start yet another round of debate, and Variety and Hollywood Reporter are certainly reliable sources for this kind of info, but for what it's worth: I asked a friend of mine who does PR for my local NBC affiliate about the ratings, and he told me (and yes, this is just *his* take) that the special underperformed. He said that NBC paid a lot of money for a two-hour movie that barely got a 6 (national) rating, and that - this gets complicated now - very likely NBC will lose money on the movie. Why? Because networks "guarantee" advertisers a certain number of viewers for their shows, and if those viewers don't show up, then the network has to grant the advertiser "make-up" ad slots - that is, run their commercials for free in order to "make up" for the lack of guaranteed viewers. So NBC might have to yield valuable timeslots to the advertisers of the Muppet movie. So he says. And so it goes...

 

[Luke]

Originally posted by murgatoad
I asked a friend of mine who does PR for my local NBC affiliate about the ratings, and he told me (and yes, this is just *his* take) that the special underperformed. He said that NBC paid a lot of money for a two-hour movie that barely got a 6 (national) rating, and that - this gets complicated now - very likely NBC will lose money on the movie.

Your friend is kinda right about the methods but it didn't underperform - it was bang on the level. NBC wouldn't have promised any more than 10/12 million viewers for this as they simply had no yardstick to measure the Muppets by. They probably will end up losing some money on it but then again they don't always make massive profits on special projects around the holiday seasons and do throw a lot of cash away in order to better the other networks and create a 'feel good factor'. They balance things out by justifying it as a promotional effort for their other shows and repeat showings in the future. I really doubt they'll be giving out any "make up slots" but generally these are in the middle of the night anyway !

Luke
* Also been to ratings school ! *

 

[kansasteen14]

anyone know if this will be shown again?