Spotted Ratings, Thursday 4/28/11: Sweep Carell

WHAT MATTERS:

• Sweeps begins, Steve Carell's The Office run ends. His final episode pulled a 4.2 demo in the finals, one of the season's bigger numbers but not a season high and frankly a mild disappointment for such a big episode, though some people who predicted much higher than I (my guess was 4.8) may feel even more strongly. Still, Carell does at least go out winning the 9/8c hour against a full complement of competition. 30 Rock rounded out the NBC evening with a weak showing at 10:30.

• Probably the ugliest night was had by CBS, which saw The Big Bang Theory score its lowest demo since early season 2, Rules of Engagement hit its lowest demo in almost two years, CSI hit a series low and The Mentalist hit its second-lowest rating ever. All were down double digits from their last originals.

• Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice were also near lows, though the drop from the last original is quite misleading because of the huge spike the last original Grey's got for the musical. Grey's was right at its pre-musical levels.

• Rounding out the 9/8c carnage, Bones had easily its worst post-Idol showing and Nikita hit an outright series low.

FULL TABLE:

	A18-49	Share	Last	Lead	LeLa	Comp	CoLa	bcShr	Avg	Rank
20/20	1.4	4	+17%	n/a	n/a	11.1	+119%	11	-9%	22/34
Grey's Anatomy	3.7	9	-24%	+164%	-26%	10.0	+19%	27	-12%	15/18
Private Practice	2.2	6	-19%	-41%	-24%	8.2	+24%	22	-20%	17/18
The Big Bang Theory	3.3	10	-11%	n/a	n/a	9.7	-2%	25	-20%	21/21
Rules of Engagement	2.3	7	-12%	-30%	-11%	9.7	-4%	19	-23%	21/21
CSI	2.4	6	-17%	+4%	-12%	11.3	+65%	18	-21%	20/20
The Mentalist	2.6	7	-13%	+8%	-17%	7.5	+100%	26	-12%	19/20
Community	1.4	4	+0%	n/a	n/a	11.6	+15%	11	-27%	20/22
The Office (R)	1.4	4	-18%	+0%	+40%	10.6	+29%	12	+4%	11/24
The Office	4.2	11	+27%	+200%	+56%	9.5	+40%	31	+13%	3/21
Parks & Recreation	2.3	6	-4%	-45%	+27%	8.4	+24%	22	-7%	9/11
30 Rock	1.9	5	-14%	-17%	-4%	8.4	+66%	20	-17%	19/21
American Idol Th	5.7	17	-2%	n/a	n/a	6.8	+28%	46	-19%	14/15
Bones	2.8	7	-13%	-51%	-2%	10.9	+69%	20	-6%	11/20
The Vampire Diaries	1.2	4	+0%	n/a	n/a	11.3	+14%	10	-18%	18/20
Nikita	0.6	2	-25%	-50%	+0%	13.1	+48%	4	-36%	20/20

VIEWING LEVELS:

Slot	Min HUT	Calc HUT	Max HUT
8-9pm	32.3	33.3	34.8
9-10pm	38.4	39.1	40.5
10-11pm	34.2	37.3	40.8
8-10pm	35.7	36.1	37.4

KEY (much more detail at What? and Why? page)

A18-49 - Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 watching the program.
Share - Percentage of US TV-watching adults 18-49 watching the program.
Last - Percent difference from previous episode.
Lead - Percent difference from lead-in program.
LeLa - Percent difference between lead-in and previous episode's lead-in.
Comp - Total rating of other broadcast programs in the same timeslot. 10:00 programming multiplied by 1.75 to attempt a level playing field.
CoLa - Percent difference between competition and previous episode's competition.
bcShr - Percentage of US national big-5 broadcast TV-watching adults 18-49 watching the program. 10:00 programming multiplied by two-thirds to attempt a level playing field.
Avg - Percent difference from show's previous demo average this season.
Rank - Rank among show's episodes to date this season.

Min HUT/Max HUT - Smallest/largest percentage of TV-owning adults 18-49 that could be watching any TV in the timeslot.
Calc HUT - Estimate of the percentage of TV-owning adults 18-49 watching any TV in the timeslot.

(R) = Regular-night repeat. These are ranked/averaged as if they were separate shows.
(oR) = Other-night repeat. These are not ranked/averaged in any way.

Stats in blue are less accurate due to lack of access to half-hour breakdowns.

Source: TravisYanan
 
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