Camp Rock premiered big and repeated well. Now it only has to keep it up for another, oh, two and a half years.
Like High School Musical.
Giving the Jonas Brothers' vehicle something to shoot for, the original HSM kept on keeping on last week, scoring nearly as many viewers for its 33rd—yes, 33rd—airing as a two-day-old rerun of Camp Rock.
A Thursday night High School Musical broadcast averaged 3.1 million viewers for the Disney Channel, according to Nielsen Media Research. That's not far off from the 3.7 million who caught Sunday's Camp Rock outing on Disney's sister network, ABC Family Channel.
Overall, the numbers for Camp Rock were strong. As previously reported, Friday's cable-topping premiere averaged 8.9 million viewers, more than HSM's own debut, and more than anything else on TV on Friday night.
Its two weekend repeats, on ABC and ABC Family channel, averaged a combined 7.2 million. In all, Disney said 21 million people spent at least part of their weekend at Camp Rock—22.4 million, if you count people in Canada—and ordered up a sequel.
A cable phenomenon, however, is not made in one weekend.
In 2006, for example, the Disney Channel movie The Cheetah Girls 2 also outdrew HSM's premiere, 7.8 million to 7.7 million viewers. But while the Cheetah Girls franchise has proved a keeper, its TV movies have not consistently topped the cable ratings like HSM (or old Lindsay Lohan movies, for that matter).
More than a year and a half after its January 2006 debut, HSM could still draw 5 million viewers, more than most new cable shows. At its two-year anniversary, it attracted 4.5 million.
Zac Efron's showering habits may be in question, but not his franchise's ability to draw consistent ratings.
Other ratings highlights for the week ended Sunday:
- Lohan's Freaky Friday has aired on Disney Channel about, rough estimate, a million times. Judging by the solid ratings—3.1 million viewers for a Tuesday night repeat, and 3 million for a Sunday afternoon broadcast—it'll probably be asked back a million more times.
- Among cable shows that didn't star dreamy tween sensations, USA's Law & Order: Criminal Intent (4.7 million) and In Plain Sight (4.67 million) were tops.
- But enough about old people, back to the tweens: Disney's The Wizards of Waverly Place (4.2 million) was cable's top comedy series draw.
- Other cable highlights: Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood (667,000) was Oxygen's top season opener ever; and the fourth-season debut of Weeds (1.3 million, per the Hollywood Reporter) was Showtime's most watched anything ever.
- House flipping is out; house flipping while being absolutely impossible to work for is in. The second-season premiere of Bravo's Flipping Out (672,000) was up 43 percent from its first-season opener, the network said.
- Broadcast TV aired stuff, too, last week. Of the stuff that aired, nothing was bigger than the Boston Celtics' series-clinching win over the Los Angeles Lakers in game six of the NBA Finals (16.9 million).
- The Celtics should blow out the Lakers more often. According to ABC, viewewship of the NBA Finals overall was up 61 percent over last year's series.
- NBC enjoyed a strong season premiere from America's Got Talent (second place, 12.8 million).
- Other top summer series: Fox's So You Think You Can Dance (fifth place, 8.87 million for Thursday's episode; sixth place, 8.86 million for Wednesday's episode); NBC's Deal or No Deal (seventh place, 8.7 million for Tuesday's episode; ninth place, 8.3 million for Wednesday's episode); and, Fox's Hell's Kitchen (10th place, 8.25 million).
- CBS' Million Dollar Password (12th place, 8.2 million) fell out of the top 10, but picked up a network order for six more episodes.
- CBS' Swingtown (28th place, 6 million) won its time slot in adults, though, fortunately, not tweens.
- The Daytime Emmys have something in common with the Oscars: record-low ratings. Friday's ABC broadcast was a new low for the show (43rd place, 5.4 million), down 35 percent from last year.
- The Univision telenovela Al Diablo Con Guapos (To Hell with the Handsome, if Wikipedia's Spanish is good) is muy hot—three of its five weeknight installments landed in the top 25 among young adult viewers.
Thanks to America's Got Talent, NBC emerged from the basement and won the week in total viewers, averaging 6.5 million.
Fox restored TV order by registering its usual victory among 18- to 49-year-olds.
In cable, USA, which didn't air Camp Rock or HSM even once, was the top prime-time network (3 million). Disney (2.8 million) and TNT (2.2 million) trailed.
Here's a look at the 10 most watched broadcast network prime-time shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:
- NBA Finals Game Six (Boston vs. Los Angeles), ABC, 16.9 million viewers
- America's Got Talent, NBC, 12.8 million viewers
- 60 Minutes, 9.1 million viewers
- Two and a Half Men, CBS, 8.9 million viewers
- So You Think You Can Dance (Thursday), Fox, 8.87 million viewers
- So You Think You Can Dance (Wednesday), Fox, 8.86 million viewers
- Deal or No Deal (Tuesday), NBC, 8.7 million viewers
- House, Fox, 8.6 million viewers
- Deal or No Deal (Wednesday), NBC, 8.3 million viewers
- Hell's Kitchen, Fox, 8.25 million viewers