Random Catastrophe

While I was leaving a comment on this post over at TVByTheNumbers.com it occurred to me that I could probably write about this, you know, on the website I own.

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Earlier I posted some info from a CBS press release dealing with the ratings for last night’s comedy block.

In that release, The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men were tied for the high mark of the night in adults 18-49.

A new version of the release is here and it turns out that TBBT went up a tenth of a point to a 5.9 in the demo to win the night outright.

The show also did another series high in total viewers with 16.32 million for last night’s episode – The Precious Fragmentation.

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CBS has issued a press release touting last night’s ratings success.

Here are some of the highlights as they relate to the shows I’m personally interested in:

• How I Met Your Mother was second in: Households (6.3/10, total viewers (10.32M), Adults 25-54 (4.7/12), Adults 18-49 (3.9/11) and adults 18-34 (3.4/10)
• Compared to last week How I Met Your Mother was even across the board
• Rules of Engagement was second in: households (6.1/09), Viewers (10.15M), Adults 25-54 (4.5/11) and Adults (18-49 (3.6/09)
• Compared to last week’s season premier Rules of Engagement was: up 3% in households (from 5.9/09), 7% in adults 25-54 (from 4.2/10), 6% in adults 18-49 (from 3.4/09) and up 420,000 viewers or 4% (from 9.73M)
• Two and a Half Men was first in: households (10.5/16), viewers (17.54M), Adults 25-54 (7.3/17), and adults 18-49 (5.8/15)
• Two and a Half Men posted its best adults 25-54 rating since Jan. 23, 2006
• Two and a Half Men posted its best adults 18-49 ratings since Feb. 5, 2007

Compared to last week Two and a Half Men was up: 4% in households (from 10.1/15), 6% in adults 25-54 (from 6.9/15), 2% in adults 18-49 (from 5.7/14) and 680,000 or 4% (from 16.86M)

• Two and a Half Men was the night’s top program in viewers and tied with The Big Bang Theory in adults 18-49
• The Big Bang Theory was first in: households (9.7/15), viewers (16.26M), adults 25-54 (7.2/16), adults 18-49 (5.8/15) and adults 18-34 (4.0/11)
• The Big Bang Theory posted a series high in adults 25-54 and its second largest audience in series history
• compared to last week The Big Bang Theory was up: 5% in households (from 9.2/14), 1% in adults 25-54 (from 7.1/15) and added 530,000 in viewers or 3% (from 15.73M)
• compared to last week’s comedy block, CBS was up: 4% in both households (8.2/13 from 7.9/12) and adults 25-54 (5.9/14 from 5.7/12), 2% in adults 18-49 (4.8/13 from 4.7/12) and added 400,000 viewers (13.57M from 13.17M)
• for the night (including CSI Miami), CBS was first in: households (8.0/13), viewers (13.01M), Adults 25-54 (5.4/13), and adults 18-49 (4.3/12)

My own personal comments.
I’m surprised (but pleased) that Rules of Engagement was up from the season premier as usually there is a drop in the second week. Even more surprising was that it managed this even though How I Met Your Mother was even from the previous week and House aired a new episode on Fox head-to-head. Next week will be interesting because Rules of Engagement airs a new episode but the rest of the block is in repeat.

Adults 18-49 are the most important numbers because that’s the most valued group for advertising purposes. So given that, CBS has got to be thrilled with that 9:00 PM hour of comedy. It will probably being the best adults 18-49 hour (for scripted shows) on television this week.

It will be interesting to see (if you’ll pardon the pun) what kind of impact this has on the wrestling ratings later today. I say that only because on Jan. 4 when Raw and iMPACT went head-to-head all of the other networks were in repeat, outside of Fox which did air a major college football game. I’d expect it to hurt TNA more if only because Raw regularly competes against these shows already whereas for iMPACT this is the first time.

It was thought (and may still be) that Thursday is the toughest night of television. I’m not so sure that’s really true anymore. I mean NBC is a shell of its former self on Thursday nights although certain CBS and ABC shows do very well on that night. I know advertisers like it because that’s the night they try to push all the new movies out the next day. But still maybe Monday has closed the gap?

I’m rambling now…

As far as my personal enjoyment the rankings were:

1. Rules of Engagement
2. How I Met Your Mother
3. The Big Bang Theory
4. Two and a Half Men

However, ranking them is not fair as I thought it was a good night overall for episodes.

Hat tip to one of my favorite websites TV by the Numbers!

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The video features Adhir Kalyan as Timmy who has the unfortunate task of being the assistant to Russell (David Spade) on Rules of Engagement. Kalyan was a recurring character in season 3 but has been moved up to series regular for season 4.

As someone who has seen every episode, I consider Timmy to be a big reason for the improvement in the show.

I’d also just like to note that during the season 4 premier on monday, I laughed harder in the first three minutes than I did for the entire monday run of Accidentally on Purpose put together. What can I say? I’m a sucker for Patrick Warburton‘s delivery and he had a line about a magic diner that just killed me.

Here’s a promo for monday’s episode Snoozin’ for a Bruisin’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvev2cBIWPU

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