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SUNDAY TALK SHOW RATINGS ANALYSIS

Nielsen Media Research ratings composite for Sunday, November 25, 2007

PROGRAM	VIEWERS	CHG
NBC MEET THE PRESS	4,002,000	+203,000
CBS FACE THE NATION	2,356,000	-430,000
ABC THIS WEEK	2,655,000	- 92,000
FOX NEWS SUNDAY	2,256,000	+416,000
CNN LATE EDITION	577,000	+131,000

With some tweaking, I am now able to calculate the ratings for the Sunday talk shows for last week instead of the previous two weeks ago. Of note: after two weeks of decline, Fox News Sunday's interview of Fred Thompson created a spike that brought Fox to its highest numbers yet, approaching those of Face the Nation when factoring in the prime time replay. Meet the Press peaked past the 4 million viewer mark last week, continuing a strong upward run. We'll see how long this lasts, although I think I may need to revise the MTP numbers slightly upward because there's also a redeye broadcast on NBC around 2 am that gets about 100,000 eyeballs. Face the Nation continues to oscillate wildly. I don't know what's going on right now, its ratings for the past few months have been stable and now they're going up and down by 500,000 each week. This Week continues to slide after spiking four weeks ago.
Data derived from Nielsen Media Research ratings for live broadcasts as publicized by numerous Web resources. Numbers for Fox News Sunday and Meet the Press include numbers from prime time replays on Fox News Channel and MSNBC, respectively. All numbers (c)2007 Nielsen Media Research.

(rauls law at work)

FNC goes all pro-Giuliani all the time and their ratings plunge.

Must suck when their best ratings are a result of a massive bump from a RINO’s conservative opponent and they STILL can’t beat a clintonista staffer.

The ratings are very interesting to say the least.

Some FReepers contend that the ratings are in direct correlation to the guests; a weak guest brings down the ratings and a strong guest lifts them.

Yet here we have MTP going up; 2 weeks ago they had their 60-year navel gazing, back-slapping self-stroking anniversary show and last week that had on the Carville/Maitlan duo with more “journalists”. No real guest to speak of these past few weeks and their ratings go up.

Fox Sunday had, of course, Fred Thompson last week, you can attribute their 416K raise to him I suppose.

Sometimes I wonder if the ratings aren’t also dependent on other factors. Some intangibles such as what channel people had on the night before, whether it was a long weekend/holiday (Thanksgiving last week), if they’re really watching or have it on in the background, etc, etc.

I must say, frankly, that I wish Tim Russert nothing but bad luck and failure, so perhaps it only disturbs me because his show appears to be doing well. Dang.

Meet the Press peaked past the 4 million viewer mark last week, continuing a strong upward run. We'll see how long this lasts

There is always the possibility that some people are watching Tim Russert because of his performance against Hillary at the debate. He may have actually acted like an impartial journalist on that occasion, and perhaps this is his reward.

That, or people are just waiting to see if they watch him get Arkancided on live TV.

FNS is going to drop further into irrelevancy as long as they keep putting these unrelated features such as Fed Ex CEO’s and “power players” on. The sound you hear is the ‘click’ of channels being changed as they go on the air. (I know, I know, I’m giving away my age. Tuners don’t click any more.)