After the prior week's snowstorm-inflated numbers, syndication experienced a market correction with many of the strips' ratings sliding for the week ending Feb. 8.
Week's biggest winners were the news mags, buoyed by events stemming from the Super Bowl halftime show. Coverage of the wardrobe malfunction bounced three of the four newsmags upwards. "Entertainment Tonight" saw an 8% uptick from week previous, hitting a season high 6.9. The Feb. 2 Super Bowl postmortem episode racked up a 7.5.
Up 10%, "Inside Edition" hit a six-year high 4.5. "Extra" inched up 3% to a 3.1, leaving "Access Hollywood" drooping 3% with a 3.4. (Monday's episode did yield a 3.9.)
In daytime, only "Dr. Phil," swung upward. Yakker was up 2% from week previous with a 5.6.
Among the rookies, "Ellen" leveled off to a 2.2, down 4%. "Sharon Osbourne" slid 7% to a 1.3, and "Living It Up," which hit new highs last week, gave back some of its gains, dropping 8% to a 1.2 "On Air," remained unchanged from last week's season high 1.1. "Starting Over," stumbled 8%, down to a 1.1.
In the first weekend of the Feb. sweeps period, "ET Weekend" gained even more ground, with a 4.7, hitting a new season high. Up 4% from week before, its ratings were nearly double that of closest competitors, off-net "West Wing" and "Stargate SG1." Latter was unchanged week to week, while "Stargate" slid 8%.
Despite front-page tabloid headlines, Martha Stewart's eponymous syndie strip did not suffer dramatic ratings shifts. With a 1.3, it was down 7% from the previous week and unchanged from same period last year, despite being downgraded into late night.
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