NBC prime-time viewership increases by 45 percent in 2 weeks since Jay Leno’s move

NBC’s prime-time viewership improves without Leno

NEW YORK — Two weeks into non-Jay Leno programming, NBC’s audience for the final hour of prime-time TV has increased by 45 percent.

While NBC doesn’t necessarily have any hits in that hour, the instant response by viewers indicates they are more comfortable with the traditional mix of drama, news and reality rather than a late-night show moved into prime time.

The failed experiment of Conan O’Brien taking over the “Tonight” show and Leno moving into prime time ended just before the Olympics. Leno was averaging 5.15 million viewers in his new slot, the Nielsen Co. said. Through two weeks of other programming, the network is averaging 7.44 million at 10 p.m. Eastern, 9 p.m. Central. Local affiliates expressed anger that Leno’s low ratings hurt their late local news.

NBC moved Leno back to the “Tonight” show. O’Brien quit instead of taking NBC’s offer to move his start time back by a half-hour.

NBC’s most-watched program of the week, “Law & Order: SVU,” was in the 10 p.m. time slot Wednesday and was seen by 8.5 million people. Two lighter shows, “Parenthood” and “The Marriage Ref,” had more than six million viewers each. A two-hour “Dateline NBC” Friday had 7.6 million, Nielsen said.

Only the warhorse “Law & Order,” with 5.21 million viewers Monday, was in the neighborhood of Leno numbers.

To give some perspective, CBS last week had 17 prime-time programs that were watched by more people than anything on NBC.

For the week, CBS averaged 11.3 million viewers in prime time (6.9 rating, 12 share), Fox had 9.4 million (5.5, 9) and won among the 18-to-49-year-old age group advertisers love. ABC had 6.5 million (4.2, 7), NBC had 6.3 million (4.0, 7), the CW had 1.8 million (1.2, 2) and ION Television had 1 million (0.7, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 3.2 million viewers (1.7 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 1.1 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 960,000 (0.5, 1) and Azteca had 210,000 (0.1, 0).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9.1 million viewers (6,1, 12). ABC’s “World News” was second with 8 million (5.4, 11) and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.1 million viewers (4.1, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,149,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.9 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of March 8-14, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “American Idol” (Tuesday), Fox, 22.75 million; “American Idol” (Wednesday), Fox, 20.7 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 19.58 million; “American Idol” (Thursday), Fox, 19.34 million; “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 17.61 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 16.99 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 16.32 million; “The Mentalist,” CBS, 16.02 million; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 15.25 million; and “The Good Wife,” CBS, 13.95 million.

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by General Electric Co. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

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