NBA playoff basketball was very popular on cable this week, taking four of the top five airings and pushing many regulars down, or completely out of the top twenty. The best WWE Raw airing dropped to sixth and the best the yellow and porous SpongeBob could muster was thirteenth. But the most-watched program of all was the iCarly "movie" on Saturday night, which led all cable viewing for the week with 6.47 million viewers.
In Plain Sight grabbed 3.6 million, but that wasn't good enough to get it in the top twenty, and the second episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent that featured Jeff Goldblum drew 3.14 million and was 36th for the week, but keep in mind that 11 out of the top 40 shows last week were NBA related (10 games, and one post-game coverage on TNT).
I know there are several of you who are interested in ratings for other shows, but unfortunately, it's not very many people and while we'd love to make everyone happy, all the time, it winds up being a lot of work for not much reward. Given our server issues, and other events, I'm not breaking out a separate list from the top 20 or taking requests today. Sorry.
Top twenty cable network television shows for the week ending May 10, 2009:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY | Time | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | iCarly MOVIE:DATEABADBOY | NICK | Sat | 08:00P-09:00P | 6,472 |
| 2 | ROCKETS/LAKERS | TNT | Wed | 10:43P-01:33A | 6,321 |
| 3 | LAKERS/ROCKETS | ESPN | Fri | 09:51P-12:25A | 5,952 |
| 4 | ROCKETS/LAKERS | TNT | Mon | 10:46P-01:29A | 5,400 |
| 5 | CELTICS/MAGIC | TNT | Sun | 08:06P-11:00P | 5,089 |
| 6 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT | USA | Mon | 10:00P-11:11P | 4,794 |
| 7 | iCarly | NICK | Sat | 09:00P-09:30P | 4,585 |
| 8 | HAWKS/CAVALIERS | TNT | Tue | 08:00P-10:51P | 4,501 |
| 9 | WWE ENTERTAINMENT | USA | Mon | 09:00P-10:00P | 4,488 |
| 10 | MAGIC/CELTICS | TNT | Mon | 08:00P-10:46P | 4,352 |
| 11 | MAGIC/CELTICS | TNT | Wed | 08:00P-10:43P | 4,345 |
| 12 | iCarly MOVIE:DATEABADBOY | NICK | Sun | 08:00P-09:00P | 4,080 |
| 13 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sat | 09:30A-10:00A | 4,077 |
| 14 | NCIS | USA | Wed | 08:00P-09:00P | 4,033 |
| 15 | MAVERICKS/NUGGETS | TNT | Tue | 10:51P-01:40A | 4,004 |
| 16 | SpongeBob | NICK | Sun | 09:30A-10:00A | 3,963 |
| 17 | NCIS | USA | Mon | 08:00P-09:00P | 3,870 |
| 18 | iCarly | NICK | Sat | 09:30P-10:00P | 3,828 |
| 19 | PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR | NICK | Sat | 10:00A-10:30A | 3,792 |
| 20 | NCIS | USA | Wed | 07:00P-08:00P | 3,736 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved