Big Picture
Renée Zellweger: Fashion Fun Plus, Nicole Kidman hangs out with her family and Bradley Cooper is a grizzly guy. The latest pics!
MORE PHOTOS +Most Commented
- TV's Top Couples Tournament: Vote in the Final Round! (2036)
- TV's Top Couples Tournament: This Round Is Closed, Please Stand By (972)
- TV's Top Couples Tournament: This Round Is Closed, Please Stand By (681)
- Afternoon Mail! Are Gleeks Having More Sex Than Vamps? (586)
- Whitney Houston Dead at 48 (394)
- Beyoncé and Jay-Z Share First Photos of Baby Blue Ivy! (389)
- Morning Mail! Is Lea Michele Ready to Walk Like an Egyptian? (286)
- Twilight Director Talks Kristen Stewart and Ex Michael Angarano: "They Were Such a Great Couple" (261)
- Life After Breaking Dawn?! Maybe, Says Studio Head! (226)
- TV's Top Couple Tournament: And the Winner Is... (217)
Top 10 Stories
- Whitney Houston Tribute: Watch LeAnn Rimes' Emotional Performance of "I Will Always Love You"
- Oprah Twitter Scandal! Winfrey Apologizes After Soliciting Nielsen Viewers to Watch OWN
- Glee Scoop: There's a New Love Triangle Going Down!
- The Voice vs. American Idol: This Is War
- Chris Brown's Grammy Lovefest Slammed by Miranda Lambert, Jack Osbourne, Eric Stonestreet, More
- Janet Jackson Remembers Whitney Houston's "Sweet Soul," Gives Advice to Bobbi Kristina on Coping With Death
- Triplets? Twins? Jennifer Aniston Addresses Pregnancy Rumors, Gets Serenaded by Steven Tyler
- Whitney Houston's Body Arrives at Funeral Home as Burial Plans Formally Announced
- Bruce Jenner Talks Kim Kardashian's Marriage: "The Next Guy's Got to Go Through Me"
- Monica and Brandy Talk Whitney Houston Memories, Her Death and That Secret Note
Fashion Police
Angelina: Going Grey! Plus, Christina Hendricks, Vanessa Hudgens, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Michelle Williams and Kristen Wiig. Rate the highs and lows!
MORE PHOTOS +
Our Partners
Bee Spells ABC
As a prime-time TV show, the Scripps National Spelling Bee proved to be far from recrementitious.
The two-hour ABC telecast averaged 8.5 million viewers, good for 21st place in the Nielsen Media Research rankings out Tuesday.
Katharine "Kerry" Close, 13, of Spring Lake, New Jersey, starred in the Bildungsroman, surviving 20 rounds and correctly spelling words such as recrementitious ("of or pertaining to recrement," i.e., waste, per Webster's), Bildungsroman ("a novel that tracks a young main character") and the clincher, ursprache ("a hypothetically reconstructed parent language"), en route to her victory.
As if anticipating a Kundalini--the release of yoga energy, and another of Close's choice words--the telecast picked up 7.3 million viewers from start to finish, ABC said. By the time Close had had her way with ursprache, 14.1 million people were watching, and presumably taking notes.
The telecast marked the first prime-time broadcast outing for the spelling bee, now 79 editions old.
Lest the event's relative ratings success leads one to conclude summer TV has gone highbrow, it should be noted that the week's most-watched show was a Monday episode of NBC's Deal or No Deal (13.8 million).
Elsewhere in the ratings:
The Sopranos' lackluster sixth season, ratings-wise, closed out Sunday on HBO before 8.9 million, tops among all cable shows, but not tops among previous series finales. Monday's Apprentice finale, featuring the hiring of Londoner Sean Yazbeck, fired up 11.2 million, NBC said, a good number for the summer, a weak number in the annals of the Donald Trump showcase. (Its performance will be reflected in next week's Nielsen rankings.) Given the rerun competition, last week's penultimate episode did well--13th place, 9.2 million. The season premiere of NBC's Last Comic Standing maintained its cutting edge against surf, sand and spelling bees--18th place, 8.6 million. Fox's So You Think You Can Dance didn't lose a step in its second week. Its Thursday edition ranked ninth (10 million); its Wednesday episode ranked 16th (8.8 million). So, CBS thought it would be cool to have Lance Bass and such play Card Sharks and such, and call the whole short-run thing Gameshow Marathon. On average, 8.3 million agreed it would be cool and such, and caught the first two episodes. The most-watched installment was Thursday's (23rd place, 8.3 million). ABC thought it would be best to burn off previously unaired episodes of canceled series. Judging by the numbers put up by Commander in Chief (50th place, 5.5 million), Rodney (61st place, 4.9 million) and Less Than Perfect (66th place, 4.7 million), almost nobody agreed.
CBS rode its crime-show reruns to a victory as the TV week's most-watched network. Overall, its shows averaged 8.7 million. NBC (7.1 million) finished second, followed by ABC (5.8 million) and Fox (5.6 million).
Here's a look at the 10 most-watched prime-time shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:
1. Deal or No Deal (Monday), NBC, 13.8 million
2. CSI, CBS, 13.6 million
3. Without a Trace, CBS, 12.1 million
4. CSI: Miami, CBS, 11.7 million
5. NCIS, CBS, 11.2 million
6. Two and a Half Men, CBS, 10.6 million
7. Deal or No Deal (Wednesday), NBC, 10.3 million
8. Criminal Minds, CBS, 10.1 million
9. So You Think You Can Dance (Thursday), Fox, 10 million
10. CSI: NY, CBS, 9.8 million
0 Comments
Now loading...