Ratings: The Glee Project Finale Sets a Series High; Everybody Still Wins
Glee Project
Everyone won on The Glee Project, so in the spirit of the Glee spin-off and Glee itself and its unrelenting focus on self-esteem, forget that nearly 311 million people out of 312 million in the United States didn't watch. Let's focus on this, instead: The 1.24 million people who did watch set a high for the freshman series, Nielsen Media Research figures show.
The program also set a season high among 18-to-49-year-olds with a 0.4 rating.
Read our interviews with The Glee Project winners
Gleeks, who saw two contestants tie for first and two tie for second place from the final four, can further rejoice that the show averaged nearly 1.1 million on a time-shifted basis over the course of the season that started June 12 on Oxygen.
On premium cable, True Blood rose to new viewership heights with 5.53 million (and a 3.1 demo rating that was just shy of a series record).
Also on Sunday night, the exhibition game (yes, we know the National Football League prefers the terms preseason game) between the Dallas Cowboys and San Diego Chargers won the night — and the week (ending on Sunday for Nielsen's calendar) — with 10.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen national numbers released Tuesday. It grabbed a 3.7 demo rating and a 4.9 among men 18-to-49.
Since Sunday Night Football is by far NBC's biggest attraction, those numbers augur well for the fourth-place broadcast network. It was the No. 1 show in prime time for the first half of the 2010-11 TV season, averaging 21.8 million viewers — up 12 percent from 2009-10 (19.4 million) — and it's likely to remain an oasis of joy for NBC.
Catch up with the latest news
On Monday's prime time among the broadcast networks, ABC's Bachelor Pad had the highest viewership, averaging 6.63 million people (2.1 demo rating), while two hours' worth of Hell's Kitchen on Fox averaged 6.13 million viewers and scored the night's top demo rating: a 2.6.