Clinton, Obama: TV Stars

Super Tuesday won't be the Super Bowl, but it probably won't be half-bad.

Ratings for the presidential primary season are surging, with CNN averaging a record 8.3 million for last week's Democratic debate in Hollywood, per Nielsen Media Research.

The event was cable's most watched show of the week, and cable's most watched presidential primary debate ever, breaking a high set just the week before when Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's South Carolina showdown, costarring innocent bystander John Edwards, averaged 5 million for CNN.

The more civil Hollywood debate was the biggest stage yet for Clinton and Obama, both of whom appeared for the first time sans Edwards, who earlier dropped out of the race. Owing to its starry audience, the debate gave CNN ample opportunity to cut away to reaction shots of Topher Grace, et al., and owing to its drawing power, it gave CNN's follow-up show, Anderson Cooper 360, a rare win in the standings over Monk.

Republican contenders haven't been the ratings power that the Democrats have, but they've had their moments, not to mention Ron Paul. Their debate at California's Reagan Library, also on CNN, averaged a strong 4 million, placing it ahead of the likes of Nickelodeon's Zoey 101 (3.3 million), which fell back to Earth after an outsize premiere.

President Bush, meanwhile, outdrew both the Democrats and the Republicans vying for his job, but the story on his State of the Union address was how weak, relatively, the numbers were.

About 8 million fewer people watched the address this year compared to last, Nielsen Media Research said. The total combined audience of 37.5 million was the worst for a State of the Union since President Clinton's 2000 speech. Then as now, Bill Clinton was a president in his lame duck year.

In cable, the Bush speech did best on, oddly enough, Fox News Channel, which averaged 4.5 million for its coverage.

Bush is not in the running in Super Tuesday. Lucky for Fox then that it owned Super Sunday.

Here are last week's other rating highlights:

• Super Bowl XLII (first place, 97.4 million—a new record).
• The Super Bowl postgame show (second place, 63.9 million).
• The House that aired after the Super Bowl (third place, 29 million).

And here are last week's other rating, um, bullet points:

• Turns out American Idol (fourth place, 28.2 million for Tuesday's episode; fifth place, 25.6 million for Wednesday's episode) is just like every other show on TV—its ratings are down double digits when compared to last year, too. 
• House, for one, has no complaints about running after Tuesday's Idol (sixth place, 22.6 million). The gig's no Super Sunday, but still...
• ABC found its way back into the top 10 with the premieres of Lost (eighth place, 16.1 million) and Lost's CliffsNotes (ninth place, 13.2 million).
• Do Mark Harmon's powers know no end? NCIS (10th place, 11.8 million) aired opposite Tuesday's Idol, and still ended up as CBS' most watched show, sorry, rerun.
• ABC's Eli Stone (12th place, 11.1 million) was the most watched new scripted show, holding off a repeat of Fox's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (45th place, 6 million) for that hotly contested title.
• Among all viewers, NBC's American Gladiators (24th place, 8.6 million) ran second in its time slot to ABC's Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann (19th place, 9.5 million). But among impressionable adults aged 18-49, Gladiators won the war against Dance War, and placed a lofty 11th overall.
• Game shows made up one-fifth of the top 20: Fox's The Moment of Truth (seventh place, 17.6 million); Fox's Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (14th place, 10.6 million); Fox's Don't Forget the Lyrics (16th place, 10 million); and NBC's Deal or No Deal (17th place, 9.7 million).
• Fox, by the way, ordered 13 more episodes of The Moment of Truth. NBC announced plans to air the upcoming Canadian drama, The Listener. Not to be outdone, CBS aired a Shark rerun at a special time (73rd place, 4.1 million).
• With all signs, save the picket signs, pointing to the writers' strike ending shortly, you might want to savor these, perhaps, last chances to rewatch episodes of The Office (69th place, 4.4 million; 84th place, 3.7 million) that you've only previously rewatched about 20 times each.
• The CW's Smallville (78th place, 3.8 million) was rewarded for offering new product.
• The CW's CW Now (197th place, 350,000 viewers) was punished for existing.
• To be fair, CW Now aired opposite the Super Bowl. Why, the infotainment show normally draws twice—twice!—as many viewers. (Be kind—don't do the math.)
• Presumably because it just sounded appropriate, NBC sacrificed a two-hour Biggest Loser rerun on Super Sunday (97th place, 3 million).
• According to the CW, nearly 1 million viewers who had never before seen a Gossip Girl tuned in its new souped-up rerun version, Gossip Girl Revealed. The influx boosted the show all the way up to 110th place (1.7 million).
• A Disney Channel outing for The Incredibles (5.7 million) delivered TV's biggest audience for a movie.
• Elsewhere in cable, USA's Monk (5.4 million) was the top scripted show, thanks to a first-run episode; TLC's Jon & Kate Plus 8 (2.5 million) was the top reality show, thanks to no first-run episodes from Bravo's Project Runway. 
• The first part of CNN's postdebate Anderson Cooper 360 scored its big number (7.7 million) on the strength of eight minutes; Disney's new animated series, Phineas and Ferb, scored its big number (4 million) on the strength of 15 minutes.
• VH1's Celebrity Rehab (1.4 million) was the most watched Jeff Conaway show. Which may not be a good thing. For Jeff Conaway.

In the battle of the networks, CBS "place[d] second in viewers in an atypical week."

For those unfamiliar with networkspeak, an atypical week is a week in which your competitor has the Super Bowl, and you don't.

A week in which you have the Super Bowl, and your rivals don't, is called a great week.

Fox had a great week. It, in fact, had its greatest week ever in total viewers (33.6 million) and 18- to 49-year-olds.

The atypically afflicted CBS (6.9 million), ABC (6.7 million) and NBC (6.4 million) trailed, badly.

The CW (2.2 million) would have finished fourth in the cable rankings.

In the actual cable rankings, USA (3 million), Disney (2.6 million) and, in a special guest appearance, CNN (2.3 million) were the top prime-time networks.

Here's a look at the 10 most watched broadcast network prime-time shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:

1. Super Bowl XLII, Fox, 97.4 million viewers
2. Super Bowl XLII Postgame, Fox, 63.9 million viewers
3. House (Sunday), Fox, 29 million viewers
4. American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 28.2 million viewers
5. American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 25.6 million viewers
6. House (Tuesday), Fox, 22.6 million viewers
7. The Moment of Truth, Fox, 17.6 million viewers
8. Lost, ABC, 16.1 million viewers
9. Lost: Past, Present & Future, ABC, 13.2 million viewers
10. NCIS, CBS, 11.8 million viewers