TV Ratings: Chuck Drops a Touch; Two and a Half Men Hits Highs; NBC Dead Last

Scoreboard
Adults 18-49: rating/Share	4.3/12	3.8/10	2.6/7	1.7/5	1.4/4	0.9/2
Adults 18-34: Rating/Share	3.0/9	3.1/10	2.4/7	1.3/4	1.5/4	1.2/4
Total Viewers (million)	13.01	10.83	9.21	5.42	3.66	1.87

CBS  took the night with adults 18-49 and overall viewers, and FOX won the night with the younger adults 18-34.  ABC took third and NBC was dead last among the major English language broadcasters.

CHUCK dropped a tenth of an adults rating point versus last week to a 2.3.  But it's the least of NBC's problems.  Trauma cratered at 9pm, and that didn't help Law & Order much at 10pm.  NBC was a heretic when it had Leno at 10pm pulling a 1.5 adults 18-49 rating.

What now that scripted content performed so badly at 10pm?  At least for  Monday night Conan fans will be able to say  "Damn, Jay Leno's lead-in for the The Tonight Show sucked about as badly as the lead-in Conan had."  And when we see the late night ratings, it no doubt hurt the Tonight Show vs. last week when Law & Order pulled a 2.1 rating with adults 18-49 at 10pm.

House returned strong at 8pm with a 4.8 rating for adults 18-49, though that was down about 6% from its last original episode on February 8.  24 improved from last week's 2.5 rating for adults 18-49 in the overnight numbers to a 2.8 rating.

Two and a Half Men hit a season high in adults 18-49 with a 5.8 rating at 9pm.

A new episode of Life Unexpected at 8pm outperformed last week's new episode at 9pm by a 10th of an 18-49 ratings point and about 100,000 viewers, it's largest audience since February 8 while Gossip Girl returned at 9pm with new episodes.

Details:

You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.

All numbers are Live+SD.

Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2010 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

Definitions:

*Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports.

Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.

Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.)

Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs which are currently in approximately 24.4% of all U.S. TV households. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.

For more information see Numbers 101.