CBS easily won Sunday night’s ratings race with a 52nd Annual Grammy Awards that hit a six-year high for the event, 26.6 million viewers, according to early Nielsen estimates. The Eye net also came out on top the rest of the weekend as well, thanks to 48 Hours Mystery on Saturday (7.1 million) and Ghost Whisperer (8.3 million) and Medium (8 million) on Friday. Fox’s Dollhouse concluded its run on Friday with a typically weak 2.2 million viewers while 20/20 drew its strongest numbers in three months — 8.1 million viewers — with an interview with John Edwards’ former aide Andrew Young.
Here, a look at Sunday’s entire lineup:
| Time | Show | Viewers (in millions) |
|---|---|---|
| 7 p.m. | 60 Minutes (CBS) America’s Funniest Home Videos (ABC) Dateline (NBC) ‘Til Death (Fox) |
12.4 8.8 4.8 2.1 |
| 7:30 p.m. | ‘Til Death (Fox) | 2.5 |
| 8 p.m. | The 52nd Annual Grammy Awards (CBS) Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (ABC) The Simpsons (Fox) |
26.6 8.5 5.1 |
| 8:30 p.m. | The Cleveland Show (Fox) | 4.5 |
| 9 p.m. | Desperate Housewives (ABC) Family Guy (Fox) Saturday Night Live Presents: Sports All-Stars (NBC) |
11.4 6.2 3.1 |
| 9:30 p.m. | American Dad (Fox) | 5.1 |
| 10 p.m. | Brothers & Sisters (ABC) | 7.7 |
KABOOM goes Brothers & Sisters with a new SERIES low. Hardly surprising considering the inane storylines and fluff material given to the actors lately. Plus the focus on marginal characters like Scotty and Holly. Calista and Rob know the ship is sinking fast; no wonder they’re getting out.
Although you could argue that 7.7 is decent for the 10 pm timeslot against the popular grammy awards as well.
The lack of head-scratching nominees and high-profile performances made the high ratings a given. BUT was it just me or did the acoustics seem a little off last night?
18-49 ratings:
7pm – 2.4 America’s Funniest Home Videos
7pm – 2.3 60 Minutes
7pm – 0.9 Dateline NBC
7pm – 0.9 Til Death
8pm – 9.7 Grammy Awards
8pm – 2.4 Simpsons
8pm – 2.2 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
8pm – 0.9 Dateline NBC
8:30pm – 2.2 The Cleveland Show
9pm – 10.4 Grammy Awards
9pm – 3.7 Desperate Housewives
9pm – 3.2 Family Guy
9pm – 1.1 SNL Presents: Sports All Stars
9:30pm – 2.5 American Dad
10pm – 9.9 Grammy Awards
10pm – 2.4 Brothers & Sisters
10pm – 1.3 SNL Presents: Sports All Stars
Americans just love their celebrities don’t they!!!!
we sure do
Ugh. Does this mean more white bread, can’t sing, fairytale obsessed teen acts are going to get nominated and heavily featured at the Grammys next year? Beyonce, Gaga, and Pink I can deal with though B was overrewarded in the General Field.
It was a pretty weak show performance-wise this year, worse than last year in my opinion.
Yep.
Wow, the Pro Bowl really is a joke, isn’t it?
I don’t check these all the time on here, but when there’s a significant special event like the Pro Bowl, you should really include other networks besides the Big 4. The Pro Bowl averaged 12.3 million viewers, by the way.
I have to agree with Alex on the storylines and fluff material of Brothers & Sisters. The Secret Life of the American Teenager over on the ABC Family channel at 8pm has more hard hitting drama. Every week of B&S now deals with some silly non-issue. A few weeks ago it was one of the kid’s science fair project. This week the big dramatic event was the family vote on the future of Kitty’s political endeavors. The scripts are at their all time weakest. That said, it’s still holding 8 million viewers against tough competition the likes of NFL playoff games, and major award shows. So there’s a strong possibility of a big bounceback once all the winter special programming has finished. The season doesn’t end until May. But you got to wonder how much better a really strong drama would do behind Desperate Housewives. As old as America’s Funniest Home Videos and Home Makeovers are they both are still delivering big numbers regardless of how tough the competition. So, there’s room for improvement at 10pm.
Don’t know what happened to FOX’s animation lineup. It seems to be falling flat week after week now. Cleveland Show is another show I use to love but has gotten tired to me. I skipped it this week.
For those who are criticizing the ratings for Brothers & Sisters: the show usually gets around 10 million viewers on a regular night. If you notice, the ratings for Desperate Housewives was also down by about 2 million viewers. So it is logical to assume that both shows took a hit because of the Grammys and not because they are losing viewers.