The Disney Channel's mashup of Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana combined to produce a perfect storm of TV ratings, topping the weekly cable viewership charts and setting a new high for a 2009 scripted cable show with 9.3 million average viewers. Two more "standard" Hannah Montana's fell into the top 20 as well.
Adults hoping for their shows to make the top 20 fared less well. The 2009 Home Run Derby and its pregame show placed #2 and #7, with 8.25 and 6.07 million average viewers respectively.
In a battle of adult scripted cable favorites, Burn Notice edged out The Closer and Royal Pains, but all three were up over last week. Perhaps because of the subsiding of Jackson-mania which had siphoned off cable viewers elsewhere? And while WWE Raw's hours were a few places further down the list than last week, they both saw their viewership rise.
We knew last week's 10th anniversary SpongeBob marathon would cause ripples in this week's cable ratings and it did, as the absorbent one took 9 of the top 20 spots for the week, and perhaps even more impressively 49 of the top 100 spots. Squarepants > all.
Yes, I will post the True Blood numbers when I see them.
True Blood was down ever so slightly to 3.85 million viewers.
You can see last week's Cable Top 20 here.
Robert is on hiatus until late July, I am on my own till then, so we will not be handling Twitter requests for ala carte show numbers.
Top 20 advertiser supported cable network television shows for the week ending July 19, 2009:
| Rank | Programs | Net | Day | Time | Viewers (Live+SD) (000s) |
| 1 | WIZARDS ON DECK W/ HANNAH | DSNY | Fri | 08:00P-09:30P | 9,292 |
| 2 | 2009 HOME RUN DERBY | ESPN | Mon | 08:18P-11:09P | 8,250 |
| 3 | Burn Notice | USA | Thu | 09:00P-10:00P | 6,664 |
| 4 | The Closer | TNT | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 6,590 |
| 5 | Royal Pains | USA | Thu | 10:00P-11:00P | 6,230 |
| 6 | Hannah Montana | DSNY | Fri | 09:30P-09:55P | 6,086 |
| 7 | HOME RUN DERBY PRELUDE | ESPN | Mon | 08:00P-08:18P | 6,065 |
| 8 | WWE Entertainment | USA | Mon | 10:00P-11:08P | 5,523 |
| 9 | SpongeBob | NAN | Sun | 09:00P-09:30P | 5,373 |
| 10 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sun | 08:30P-09:00P | 5,169 |
| 11 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sun | 07:30P-08:00P | 5,088 |
| 12 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sun | 08:00P-08:30P | 4,952 |
| 13 | WWE Entertainment | USA | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 4,927 |
| 14 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sun | 07:00P-07:30P | 4,851 |
| 15 | SpongeBob | NAN | Sun | 09:30P-10:00P | 4,675 |
| 16 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 10:30A-11:00A | 4,674 |
| 17 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 10:00A-10:30A | 4,470 |
| 18 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 11:00A-11:30A | 4,460 |
| 19 | NCIS | USA | Mon | 08:00P-09:00P | 4,290 |
| 20 | Hannah Montana | DSNY | Fri | 07:30P-08:00P | 4,219 |
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Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved