Spotted Ratings, Saturday 12/31/11 (FINALS): New Year's Ratin' Eve

WHAT MATTERS:

• Didn't see this one coming! ABC got pretty ginormous ratings out of a full night of New Year's Rockin' Eve, with the average for the first two hours close to what the 10:00 special usually gets. Then, no doubt benefiting from the two extra hours, the 10:00 special set records. There was huge build throughout the evening: 1.5 -> 2.2 -> 2.8 -> 3.3 -> 3.9 -> 4.3.

• Dick Clark Productions only widened their gap over the primetime portion of NBC's New Year's Eve with Carson Daly, which finished well behind last year's 1.2. Earlier in the NBC evening (and on Fox) were some noble attempts to hit the lowest ratings in big-four history, but the repeats of Grimm and Terra Nova did not oblige.

FULL TABLE:

	Viewers	A18-49	Share	Skew	Last	Lead	LeLa	Avg	Rank	TRUE
New Year's Rockin' Eve 40th Anniversary Party	8.4	2.5	9	38%	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	3.66
New Year's Rockin' Eve	12.9	4.1	15	41%	n/a	+64%	n/a	n/a	n/a	7.13
How I Met Your Mother (R)	1.9	0.4	2	27%	-78%	n/a	n/a	-71%	9/9	0.48
Movie: The Bourne Ultimatum	2.9	0.6	2	26%	n/a	+50%	n/a	n/a	1/1	0.95
Grimm (R)	2.2	0.5	2	29%	-17%	n/a	n/a	-17%	3/5	0.60
Grimm (R)	1.7	0.4	2	30%	-20%	-20%	+0%	-31%	6/6	0.63
New Year's Eve with Carson Daly	3.1	0.9	3	37%	n/a	+125%	n/a	n/a	n/a	1.59
Terra Nova (R)	1.5	0.5	2	43%	-50%	n/a	n/a	-39%	8/8	0.52
Terra Nova (R)	1.6	0.5	2	40%	+0%	+0%	+0%	-37%	8/9	0.72

KEY (with much more detail at the New Daily Spotted Ratings page):

Viewers - The total number of viewers (age 2+, in millions) that watched the program.
A18-49 - Adults 18-49 rating. Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 watching the program.
Share - Adults 18-49 share. Percentage of US TV-watching adults 18-49 watching the program.
Skew - Percentage of the total audience that falls in the 18-49 demo.
Last - A18-49 percent difference from previous episode.
Lead - A18-49 percent difference from lead-in program.
LeLa - A18-49 percent difference between the show's lead-in and its lead-in for the previous episode.
Avg - A18-49 percent difference from the show's average demo for previous original episodes this season.
Rank - The A18-49 rating's rank among the show's episodes that have aired so far this season.
TRUE - True Strength, a metric that adjusts the A18-49 rating for overall viewing levels, competition and lead-in.

(R) - Repeat.

More Spotted Ratings in the Index.