Nature project ‘Life’ scores Discovery Channel the best ratings for new series in decade

Discovery’s ‘Life’ catches eye of TV viewers

NEW YORK — The Discovery Channel’s latest nature project, “Life,” debuted with the network’s best ratings for a new series in a decade.

The series, four years in the making, shows animal footage in eye-catching high definition. It had 11.8 million viewers for its first episode at 8 p.m. Sunday. The second episode immediately followed and reached 11.5 million viewers, the Nielsen Co. said.

That exceeded Discovery’s popular “Planet Earth” series from three years ago and outpaced the broadcast networks, except for the CBS Sunday lineup.

Within that CBS lineup, it’s becoming apparent that viewers like seeing bosses put in their place. “Undercover Boss” is emerging as a hit. It was the fifth most popular show on the air last week, with 14.47 million viewers, Nielsen said.

For the week, CBS averaged 10.8 million viewers (6.7 rating, 12 share) and Fox had 9.2 million (5.5, 9), with the two networks in a dead heat for the lead among the key 18-to-49-year-old demographic. NBC averaged 6.1 million viewers (3.9, 7), ABC had 5.4 million (3.5, 6), the CW had 1.8 million (1.2, 2) and ION Television had 1.1 million (0.7, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 3.2 million viewer prime-time average (1.6, 3), Telemundo had 1.1 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 900,000 (0.5, 1) and Azteca had 200,000 (0.1, 0).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.1 million viewers (5.5, 12). ABC’s “World News” was second with 7.2 million (4.9, 11), and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.2 million viewers (3.5, 7).

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 15-21, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “American Idol” (Tuesday), Fox, 22.91 million; “American Idol” (Wednesday), Fox, 20.51 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 18 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 15.1 million; “Undercover Boss,” CBS, 14.47 million; “The Good Wife,” CBS, 13.4 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 13.28 million; “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 12.7 million; “Amazing Race 16,” CBS, 11.99 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 11.67 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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NEW YORK (AP) — The Discovery Channel’s latest nature project, “Life,” is catching the eye of television viewers.

The series debuted Sunday with Discovery’s best ratings for a new series in a decade. Four years in the making, “Life” captures all manner of creatures showing what they had to do to survive and thrive.

The cable series outpaced anything on broadcast TV Sunday night, except for the CBS lineup.

Within that CBS lineup, it’s becoming apparent that “Undercover Boss” is a hit. The series shows corporate bosses trying to perform jobs on the lowest rung of their company. The Nielson Co. says it was the fifth most popular prime-time show last week.