Thanksgiving Ratings: ABC, Please Stop!
November 24, 2007 by Tom
The ratings are out for Thursday (Thanksgiving night). The good news: Ugly Betty came in second in its time-slot to Survivor China, as it has all year. Ugly Betty has been a solid second, and seems to be holding its viewership.
The bad news: this past episode could be called the best episode of the show that nobody watched. OK, nobody is probably an overstatement. However, Betty has been holding at a respectable 11 million for most of the year (with great numbers in the 18-49 demo), but Thursday night, 7.52 million watched.
Numbers were down all around (Grey’s Anatomy got it’s worst ratings ever) – Only CBS’ crime dramas seemed to hold. NBC had the good sense to run The Incredibles, which had a respectable 7.23 million.
Enjoy a good rant after the jump…
This wouldn’t be too alarming, but the exact same thing happened last year! Ugly Betty in 2006 had been averaging 12-13 million, last Thanksgiving it had only 8.5 million viewers. Grey’s had been averaging 21-23 million, and only pulled in 18.5 million on Thanksgiving.
I’m not a sociologist, but perhaps the programming people at ABC ought to consider that the people in demographics who watch Grey’s and Betty are probably doing other things on Thanksgiving!
Please ABC – next year, show a rerun on Thanksgiving (instead of the next Thursday). Or show a movie like NBC did. Thanksgiving generally puts folks in a mood for something different. Save the episodes of your Thursday shows; don’t first-run them when the majority of your viewers are watching football, or getting in early shopping, or cleaning up after a feast, or napping.
This only makes me angry because “Giving Up The Ghost” was an EXCELLENT episode (I absolutely love those high-tension, got-to-improvise,war room, Apollo 13 type dramas).
Hopefully, most who missed it watched on ABC’s site (I did). ABC, please, next year, show Charlie Brown in the 8:00 hour on Thanksgiving!
Source: Televisionista
I was hoping they would air a rerun on Thanksgiving Thursday, but apparently ABC doesn’t realize that people might be celebrating with family, and not have enough time to sit down and watch an hour show.
Still though, 7 million is pretty good for a holiday.
But another thing I have to say, that doesn’t really have to do with Thanksgiving, but I’ve noticed that the episodes that are very Henry/Betty heavy seem to get the most viewers. Just a thought.
I totally agree. I could not believe they were showing a new episode on Thanksgiving day and a repeat this week….they need to either show a movie or show the Season Premiere that night instead of this week.
UGH !