The Real Housewives of OC (Bravo): Ratings Recap

Bravo's long-running 'Real Housewives' franchise began March 21, 2006 with the premiere of 'The Real Housewives of OC'. The show launched to a not-very-promising 0.2 P18-49 rating and 430,000 viewers, but nearly doubled to 838,000 by its first season finale. The show steadily rose in the ratings over the next 4 seasons, ultimately peaking in its fifth season (2009-10) where it averaged a 1.1 rating & over 2 million viewers. It held at ~2M viewers for 2 more seasons before it began steadily declining, yet remaining above 1M viewers on-average through season 15. Its 16th season delivered its lowest numbers (850,000) since 2006, and a 17th season is expected to premiere in 2023.

Top Chef (Bravo): Ratings Recap

Bravo's 'Top Chef' premiered March 8, 2006 to a 0.7 adults 18-49 rating and 1.3 million viewers, fell hard in its second week, but ended up growing its audience up to 1.5 million by its first season finale. the show grew its ratings in each of the next 4 seasons, reaching its peak in its fifth season (2008-09) where it averaged over 3 million viewers per episode. It steadily declined over the next several seasons before finally falling below 1 million viewers on-average for the first time in season 12 (2014-15). Over the next 6 seasons, its ratings remained incredibly steady at between 800K-1M viewers, but it dipped to its lowest numbers yet in 2022's season 19 where it pulled 725,000. It has been renewed for a 20th season which is expected to air in 2023.

Trust Me (TNT): Ratings Recap

TNT's 'Trust Me' premiered January 26, 2009 to a 1.0 adults 18-49 rating and 3.4 million viewers; OK numbers for scripted cable at the time but definitely not anything spectacular. It fell to a 0.6 & 1.9 million viewers in its second week and tumbled to only 876,000 by its 7th week. Clearly on the chopping block, TNT opted to burn off the remaining 6 episodes over 3 days and the program concluded to just a 0.2 rating & 426,000 viewers.

Sanctuary (Syfy): Ratings Recap

Syfy's 'Sanctuary' premiered October 3, 2008 to a strong 0.8 adults 18-49 rating and 2.72 million viewers, but fell to just under 2 million viewers in its second week and averaged about the same throughout its first season. A second season premiered in fall 2009, but declined more than a tenth in the demo and to about 1.5 million viewers on-average. The third season premiered in fall 2010 and initially pulled similar numbers to the second season, but ratings tumbled after an ill-fated move to Monday nights in spring 2011 - falling as low as 656,000. The show returned to Friday nights for its final season in fall 2011 and averaged slightly better in 18-49 & viewers.

Ratings Archive by Program: Broadcast (1991-92 Season)

This post is features the full Nielsen ratings for all first-run regular Broadcast primetime programs that aired during the 1991-92 TV Season. For cable programs, I normally do a full "Ratings Recap" for each show, but because of the sheer volume of broadcast programs and episodes, it just isn't feasible to do that for every major broadcast program. Instead, I've taken all the data I've posted on the site and organized it by season and then by network in Google Sheets. Within each embedded sheet, programs are organized into tabs with their full season data available in each tab. For this season, HH data and viewership data is available for every first-run episode. There isn't any data here that isn't already posted in the weekly posts, but this is just a different way of looking at it.

The weekly 1991-92 weekly ratings post has also been updated with these typed-out charts.

Ratings Archive by Program: Broadcast (2001-02 Season)

This post is features the full Nielsen ratings for all first-run regular Broadcast primetime programs that aired during the 2001-02 TV Season. For cable programs, I normally do a full "Ratings Recap" for each show, but because of the sheer volume of broadcast programs and episodes, it just isn't feasible to do that for every major broadcast program. Instead, I've taken all the data I've posted on the site and organized it by season and then by network in Google Sheets. Within each embedded sheet, programs are organized into tabs with their full season data available in each tab. For this season, HH data, A18-49 data, and viewership data is available for every first-run episode. There isn't any data here that isn't already posted in the weekly posts, but this is just a different way of looking at it.

Ratings Archive by Program: Broadcast (1999-00 Season)

This post is features the full Nielsen ratings for all first-run regular Broadcast primetime programs that aired during the 1999-00 TV Season. For cable programs, I normally do a full "Ratings Recap" for each show, but because of the sheer volume of broadcast programs and episodes, it just isn't feasible to do that for every major broadcast program. Instead, I've taken all the data I've posted on the site and organized it by season and then by network in Google Sheets. Within each embedded sheet, programs are organized into tabs with their full season data available in each tab. For this season, HH data, A18-49 data, and viewership data is available for every first-run episode. There isn't any data here that isn't already posted in the weekly posts, but this is just a different way of looking at it.

Ratings Archive by Program: Broadcast (2000-01 Season)

This post is features the full Nielsen ratings for all first-run regular Broadcast primetime programs that aired during the 2000-01 TV Season. For cable programs, I normally do a full "Ratings Recap" for each show, but because of the sheer volume of broadcast programs and episodes, it just isn't feasible to do that for every major broadcast program. Instead, I've taken all the data I've posted on the site and organized it by season and then by network in Google Sheets. Within each embedded sheet, programs are organized into tabs with their full season data available in each tab. For this season, HH data, A18-49 data, and viewership data is available for every first-run episode. There isn't any data here that isn't already posted in the weekly posts, but this is just a different way of looking at it.

Friends (NBC): Ratings Recap

NBC's 'Friends' premiered Sept. 22, 1994 to a 14.7/23 HH rating/share with 21.5 million viewers and from the get-go was one of the highest-rated and most-viewed TV programs of the 1990s and early 2000s. The show peaked in its second-season where it averaged 30.8 million viewers, but even after that, it pulled incredibly high numbers in all subsequent seasons. Seasons three through five were all at 13.0 and above in the A18-49 demo, and even in the last 5 seasons, the show only averaged below an 11.0 rating once (season 7). In all 10 seasons the show remained above 20 million viewers, and it concluded in May 2004 to an astounding 24.9/54 demo score & 52.5 million viewers. Note: HH ratings are used in seasons 1 & 2 but switch to A18-49 beginning with season 3.

The Big C (Showtime): Ratings Recap

Showtime's 'The Big C' premiered August 16, 2010 to a 0.5 A18-49 rating & 1.15 million viewers, strong retention behind the fifth season premiere of 'Weeds' lead-in (0.6 & 1.26 million). The show actually had good retention throughout its first season, averaging a 0.38 rating & 831,000 viewers vs. 0.46 & 938,000 for 'Weeds.' Its second season saw significant declines, down to 0.22 & 574,000 on-average, and the third season dipped even further to 0.19 & 480,000. A short 4-episode fourth season aired in 2013 down to 0.1 in the demo with 283,000 viewers and the show was cancelled.

American Horror Story (FX): Ratings Recap

FX's 'American Horror Story' premiered October 5, 2011 to a solid 1.6 A18-49 rating with 3.18 million viewers and held in the high-2 millions throughout its first season, ultimately averaging a 1.6 & 2.82 million viewers. Following a slight decline in its second season, the show's ratings peaked in its third where it logged a 2.2 rating & 4 million viewers. Its fourth season dipped a bit to a still-great 1.9 rating & 3.9 million viewers, but then lost a million viewers down to 2.9 million in its fifth and sixth seasons. Numbers declined pretty consistently for the next few seasons, and its most-recent 10th season pulled just a 0.23 rating & 652,000 viewers in fall 2021. FX has renewed the series through season 13.

The Artful Detective/Murdoch Mysteries (Ovation): Ratings Recap

'Murdoch Mysteries' is a Canadian drama series that premiered January 20, 2008 on Bravo! in Canada. It made its U.S. debut on Ovation network on July 27, 2013 under the title 'The Artful Detective' and aired under that title until season 12 when it reverted to 'Murdoch Mysteries.' U.S. viewership data is unavailable for the first seven seasons which Ovation burned through quickly by airing the program weekly from Jul. 27, 2013 through Feb. 14, 2015. The 8th season was the first to air closely in-line with the Canadian broadcast and continued to do so for all subsequent seasons. The ratings have been relatively steady throughout its U.S. run albeit not good. In the 18-49 demo, it averaged a 0.01 demo rating in seasons eight through 15, but fell to a zero rating for 2022's 16th season. In viewership, it has been consistent at between 100K-200K viewers except for a slightly higher-viewed 15th season which logged 234,000. A 16th season is expected to air in 2023.

Girls (HBO): Ratings Recap

HBO's 'Girls' premiered April 15, 2012 to a 0.4 adults 18-49 rating and 872,000 viewers and rather than seeing any significant declines, it actually improved its ratings throughout its first season: concluding to a 0.5 and over 1 million viewers. It remained relatively steady throughout its next two seasons, both averaging a rounded 0.4 demo rating, but then dipped to 0.3 for its last three seasons. In viewership, the show consistently put up solid numbers for HBO with nearly every season well over 600,000 except for 2016's fifth season which had the show's lowest numbers (543,000). It aired a total of 62 episodes over the course of six seasons and concluded in 2017.

Band of Brothers (HBO): Ratings Recap

'Band of Brothers' was an HBO miniseries that premiered Sept. 9, 2001 with a really strong 9.9 million viewers - one of HBO's highest-rated premieres ever. Viewership dipped in the following weeks to 7.27 million and 6.29 million and it's hard to know if this was just normal loss of interest or whether it had partially to do with the events of 9/11 which happened two days after the first episode. 'Band of Brothers' was one of few programs that continued airing as scheduled after 9/11 as most everything on the broadcast networks were delayed a week. Either way, the show concluded with the lowest numbers of its run (3.2 HH rating & 5.05 million viewers) though even these numbers would've gotten any regular HBO series easily renewed.  

Impress Me (Pop): Ratings Recap

Pop's 'Impress Me' premiered March 18, 2015 with a relatively good 'Schitt's Creek' lead-in (161,000 & 0.05) though was only able to hold about a quarter of that audience (48,000) and less than half of the demo (0.02). Things didn't improve from there, falling as low as 0.01 in the demo & 21,000 viewers and averaging just 44,000 viewers over 13 episodes. Needless to say, it was not renewed for a second season.

Man at Arms: Art of War (El Rey): Ratings Recap

'Man at Arms: Art of War' premiered June 8, 2017 on the micro-rated El Rey Network to a 0.02 adults 18-49 rating and 85,000 viewers. Though the first season numbers (0.02 rating & 57,000 viewers on-average) look bad, they were actually not terrible for El Rey. Unfortunately, the numbers plummeted in its second season down to zero adults 18-49 and just 25,000 viewers which led to its cancellation.

Rock This Boat (Pop): Ratings Recap

Pop's 'Rock This Boat' premiered January 14, 2015 with an hour-long episode which logged a 0.09 adults 18-49 rating with 219,000 viewers - solid numbers for Pop network. It fell into the mid-100Ks for the rest of its first season, ultimately averaging a 0.06 & 170,000 viewers. A second season aired in summer 2016 and began very low (68,000) but recovered up to 125,000 on-average & a 0.04 rating, neither of which were good enough to warrant a third season renewal.

Wolf Creek (Pop): Ratings Recap

Pop's 'Wolf Creek' premiered October 14, 2016 to a tiny 0.01 in the demo and 68,000 viewers. It had a really short run of only 6 episodes, but high a ratings high in its final episode where it scored a 0.03 rating & 160,000 viewers which helped push its series average to 105,000. It was not renewed for additional seasons.

Cleverman (Sundance TV): Ratings Recap

Sundance TV's 'Cleverman' was an Australian import that premiered June 1, 2016 to a 0.04 adults 18-49 rating & 197,000 viewers. It held most of its audience that season, averaging a 0.04 and about 150,000 viewers - not terrible numbers for Sundance. However the numbers tumbled by half in show's second season (2017) to a 0.02 rating and ~70,000 viewers.

Return of the Mac (Pop): Ratings Recap

Pop Network's 'Return of the Mac' was a short-lived series that aired in spring 2017. The show debuted with a 0.02 demo rating & 69,000 viewers and basically remained around that mark through its 8 episodes. It hit a demo & viewership high in its second episode (0.03 & 91,000), but concluded to just 44,000 viewers and averaged 60,000 which was not enough to warrant a second season renewal.