Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesJersey Shore is going Dancing With the Stars?! Keeping Up with the Kardashians is flinging cupcakes?! Betty White is done?!
Has the world gone mad?
The answers—and more questions—in the latest TV ratings quiz:
1. True or false: Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino is totally overpaid; DWTS is totally crazy to consider him a "star." So false. The situation on The Situation is that, demographically speaking, MTV's Jersey Shore is the realest of deals. Last week's episode was bigger than football, an Office rerun and everything else aired the same night by the big-boy broadcast networks, TVBytheNumbers pointed out. Overall, the show averaged 5.5 million (matching a series high), and placed sixth among all bajillion cable shows, per the latest Nielsen Media Research rankings.
2. True or false: Food fights will get you nowhere. If Kim Kardashian and company are doing the fighting, the answer is false. Sunday's cupcake-smooshing, fifth-season premiere of Keeping Up with the Kardashians was the series' most-watched opener ever (4.7 million), and killed the same big-boy broadcast networks among young women. Even more than that, it helped drive E! to its most-watched day in network history. Not that we noticed or anything.
3. True or false: Betty White is—gasp?!—over. C'mon, she won an Emmy over the weekend. What is true is that her TVLand sitcom, Hot in Cleveland, is done—for the season. Its first-season closer averaged 3.4 million. Among cable comedies, only the usual Disney Channel suspects had larger prime-time audiences.
4. Temperature check: If we are our cable reality-show ratings, who are we today? Antique-hunting (Pawn Stars—6.1 million for back-to-back episodes), junkyard-trolling (American Pickers—5.2 million), swamp-dwellers (Swamp People—4.2 million) who, of course, love them some Kardashians. On free TV, we're all about Big Brother.
5. Project Runway hemline watch: Up or down? Continuing to move up the cable rankings. Last week, it was in the Top 40, and averaged 3.4 million, far more than what can now be declared its oddly under-watched season premiere.
6. Army Wives watch: Did you watch? Yes. The Lifetime drama's fourth-season finale delivered its biggest audience of the year: 3.9 million.
Here's a look at the 10 most-watched, all-new broadcast and cable primetime shows for the week ended Sunday, per Nielsen Media Research:
- Sunday Night Football (Minnesota vs. San Francisco), 10.7 million
- America's Got Talent (Wednesday), 10.3 million
- America's Got Talent (Tuesday), 10.2 million
- Wipeout (Tuesday), 9 million
- Sunday Night Football pregame, 8.3 million
- Big Brother (Sunday), 7.7 million
- Big Brother (Wednesday), 7.6 million
- Big Brother (Thursday), 7.5 million
- The Closer, 6.8 million
- Rizzoli & Isles, 6.5 million