Primetime Ratings: ‘Giants’ Victory for Fox
National Football League Playoff Upset Tops Other Four Networks Combined
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/14/2008 9:34:00 AM
In what could be foreshadowing of the kind of numbers it can look forward to with American Idol in a strike-disrupted season, Fox clobbered the competition Sunday night in the 18-49 demo with a 9 rating/21 share, with NBC getting little viewership for its coverage of the Golden Globe Awards show/not an awards show.
But rather than American Idol providing Fox with the powerhouse lead-in, it was "America's Team," the National Football League’s Dallas Cowboys, or more accurately that team's upending by the underdog New York Giants, which spilled over into primetime and averaged a whopping 14.6/36 from 7 p.m.-8 p.m., delivering a powerhouse lead-in to new drama Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which averaged a 7.6/18 from 8 p.m.-9 p.m. and was the night's second-highest-rated show.
As it has frequently done on Idol nights, Fox beat ABC, CBS, NBC and The CW combined in rating and share.
Second-place ABC was a speck in the rearview mirror at a 3.9/9, led by two hours’ worth of Extreme Makeover from 8 p.m.-10 p.m. (5.5/12) and Brothers and Sisters from 10 p.m.-11 p.m., which won its time period with a 4.3/10.
CBS was third with a 3.1/7, topped by Amazing Race at a 3.7/9. CBS' airing of Comanche Moon, the third installment of the Lonesome Dove chronicles, averaged a 3.2 but lost audience in the demo over each of its half-hours.
NBC was a distant fourth at a 1.4/3. With its Golden Globes coverage reduced by the writers’ strike to sharing a press conference with anyone that wanted to air it, NBC only managed a 1.3/3 for the one-hour show. It also did not fare particularly well with a repeat of the just-renewed American Gladiators, which averaged a 1.9/5 from 10 p.m.-11 p.m. for third place.
The CW averaged a 0.4/1 for a lineup of the extremely low-rated CW Now (0.2/1) a repeat of Aliens in America and back-to-back episodes of One Tree Hill.
