Despite more erosion for new unscripted series "Oprah's Big Give," ABC notched another Sunday ratings victory in key demos, winning each hour of the night.
According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, the Alphabet prevailed opening the night with "America's Funniest Home Videos" (2.3/7 in 18-49, 7.4 million viewers overall), and kept it going at 8 o'clock with "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" (4.1/11 in 18-49, 12.0 million viewers overall), the evening's top-rated program. "Oprah's Big Give" (3.6/9 in 18-49, 9.7 million viewers overall) then won at 9 o'clock despite a 10% dip week to week, and "Here Come the Newlyweds" led at 10 o'clock despite a slightly bigger falloff in its third outing (2.9/8 in 18-49, 7.0 million viewers overall).
Fox ran second on the night among young adults, led by repeats of "Family Guy" (3.4/9 in 18-49, 6.7 million viewers overall) and "The Simpsons" (3.0/9 in 18-49, 6.6 million viewers overall). Net didn't fare as well with firstrun episodes of "King of the Hill" at 8:30 (2.8/7 in 18-49, 6.0 million viewers overall) and "Unhitched" at 9:30 (2.3/6 in 18-49, 4.4 million viewers overall).
CBS was up slightly week to week with "60 Minutes" (2.0/6 in 18-49, 11.1 million viewers overall), "Big Brother" (2.3/6 in 18-49, 6.3 million viewers overall) and a repeat of "Cold Case" (2.0/5 in 18-49, 8.1 million viewers overall), while "Dexter" (1.8/5 in 18-49, 6.4 million viewers overall) was on par with the previous week.
NBC similarly failed to put up big numbers for any of its shows, with a two-hour "Dateline" (1.9/6 in 18-49, 8.1 million viewers overall) followed by repeats of "Law & Order" (2.0/5 in 18-49, 7.2 million viewers overall) and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (2.2/6 in 18-49, 7.7 million viewers overall).
Meanwhile, preliminary Nielsen estimates for Saturday night show that Lifetime drew a sizable 3.4 million viewers for the premiere of its original movie "Wisegal," starring Alyssa Milano, Jason Gedrick and James Caan.
Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: ABC, 3.2/9; Fox, 2.5/7; CBS and NBC, 2.0/5; Univision, 0.7/2; CW, 0.4/2.
In total viewers: ABC, 9.0 million; CBS, 8.0 million; NBC, 7.8 million; Fox, 5.1 million; Univision, 1.8 million; CW, 1.0 million.
TV Ratings
Sunday, March 16, 2008 (*millions)
| Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (ABC) | 12.0 mil |
| Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (ABC) | 4.1/11 |
| Oprah's Big Give (ABC) | 3.6/9 |
| Family Guy (FOX) | 3.4/9 |
| ABC | 3.2/9 |
| FOX | 2.5/7 |
| CBS | 2.0/6 |
| NBC | 2.0/5 |
from Nielsen Media Research - preliminary results
Contact Rick Kissell at
rick.kissell@variety.com