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12/8: Dancing, football, xmas specials dominate the week
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlantans last week consumed a heavy meal of celebrity dancing, Christmas entertainment and football.
While Fox’s “House” took the top slot in Atlanta as usual, the two “Dancing With the Stars” episodes featuring Helio Castroneves defeating “Scary Spice” Melanie Brown for the crown boogied their way to spots No. 2 and 3 for WSB-TV, ABC’s local affiliate.
And ABC’s “Shrek the Halls” showed the public’s big appetite for new Christmas specials, pulling in a surprisingly robust 21 million viewers nationally Nov. 28, including 428,000 here. It ranked No. 4 in Atlanta.
Plus, Atlantans hoping the University of Georgia would make it to the bowl championship flocked to the Fox special announcing the bowls on Sunday, which landed No. 7 locally, No. 26 nationwide.
With a tornado hammering Wisteria Lane, ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” on Sunday drew its best ratings in a year nationwide with 20.6 million viewers, ranking fourth. But the plotline didn’t excite the locals as much: The show only ranked No. 10 with 325,000 viewers in Atlanta, fewer than a week earlier.
On the new Peachtree TV, the network’s first original series, “Dallas Austin’s Drumroll,” attracted a respectable 130,000 or so viewers in metro Atlanta in its opening frame Nov. 27, ranking 67th among households. The reality show featuring the Southwest DeKalb High School marching band did slightly better last Tuesday.
Over on cable, SciFi Network celebrated its biggest audience in its history with part one of “Tin Man,” its starker reimagining of “The Wizard of Oz.” The telecast drew 6.3 million viewers Sunday.
Among syndicated shows, the new “TMZ on TV” show is doing slightly better on Fox’s WAGA-TV at 7:30 p.m. than its time-slot predecessor “That ’70s Show,” finishing a solid third place. “Jeopardy” over at WATL-TV has nearly doubled its ratings at the same time period vs. its 4:30 p.m. slot on WXIA-TV before the fall season began.
“Wheel of Fortune” —- now at 7 on WATL —- lost about a quarter of its audience compared with when it was on WXIA at 7:30 p.m. prior to September.
Among the late-night shows, in Atlanta, the writers strike, which started Nov. 5, affected all of them to varying degrees. Leno locally is down 20% compared to May, comparable to the drop nationwide. Ditto with Conan. CBS’s Letterman and Ferguson are down less severely nationally, possibly because the bigger audiences over on NBC may be checking them out. In fact, Letterman’s November ratings in repeats in Atlanta were higher than they were in May, when he aired originals. Jimmy Kimmel was only down about 10 percent in November vs. the previous month.
(Unfortunately, talks between the producers and the writers broke off Friday with no solution in sight. It appears this strike will drag into the new year, guaranteeing tons of scripted repeats in January and February.)
TOP PRIME-TIME SHOWS IN ATLANTA
For the week of Nov. 26
Rank. program, network, date..Natl. viewers..Rank
“House” Fox, Nov. 27 .526,000 ……..7
“Dancing With the Stars” ABC, Nov. 26 .482,000 ……..2
“Dancing With the Stars (results)” ABC, Nov. 27 472,000 ……..1
“Shrek the Halls” ABC, Nov. 28 428,000 ……..3
“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” ABC, Nov. 28 402,000 ……..5
“Oklahoma/Missouri Big 12 Championship” ABC Dec. 1 346,000……..27
“AllState BCS Selection Show” Fox Dec. 2 .334,000……..26
“Bones” Fox, Nov. 27 .325,000……..33
“Dolphins/Steelers Monday Night Football” ESPN, Nov. 26 324,000……..n/a
“Desperate Housewives” ABC, Dec. 2 321,000 ……..4
Source: Nielsen Media Research
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