Breaking...
By Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/20/2004
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Bellville Quits at Charter
St. Louis—The executive shuffle at Charter Communications continues. At press time, number-two executive Margaret Bellville resigned after less than two years on the job. Bellville, a former Cox Communications executive, had been executive vice president and COO of Charter since 2002. But Charter's cable systems have stumbled, and the company has had a particularly tough time fighting off DBS companies.
Survivor No Friend to Joey
New York—In the matchup everybody's been waiting for, CBS's Thursday-night season debut of Survivor: Vanuatu beat the first half-hour of NBC's Friends"supersized" spinoff Joey in viewers and key demos, including 18-49, according to Nielsen. NBC won the night in 18-49s, 8.0 to 6.9, but CBS won in total viewers, 19.4 million to 15.9 million.
From 8-8:30 p.m., Survivorgrabbed 18.92 million viewers to Joey's15.26 million. In the 18-49 demo, which has been NBC's bread and butter, Survivorhad a 7.2 Nielsen rating versus Joey's 6.9. Survivor hadn't won that demo in that time period during the regular season since May 2001.
A CSIrepeat on CBS also bested a new episode of The Apprentice 2in total viewers (23.3 million to 14.68 million) and in most major demos.
But Apprentice 2'sstrong 18-49 ratings at 10-11 p.m. helped NBC win the night in that demo. (Altogether NBC's 18-49 ratings were up 28% from the week before.) NBC's Will & Grace also had a strong night, helping NBC. Next week, with regular-length episodes, charting wnners might be easier. But it's clear while Joey doesn't have the tug of Friends, the NBC-CBS Thursday battle will still be red hot this season.
Weather Channel Sets Record
Atlanta—The furor of Hurricane Ivan gave The Weather Channel its best ratings in history. The network claims it outperformed all other cable news and information channels on Sept. 15, the day before Ivan slammed into the Florida's panhandle and the other parts of the South. TWC achieved a total-day (5 a.m.-2 a.m.) 1.9 Nielsen household rating, representing more than 1.6 million homes. The peak rating for the day was at 9:30-9:45 p.m. ET: a 3.6, more than 3.1 million households.
