RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Big Brother’& ‘Rising Star’ Up, ‘Unforgettable’ Soars, ABC Tops Sunday Among Demo
On a busy TV Sunday that saw the World Cup final on ABC and cable debuts and season returns, CBS was the only one of the Big 4 to offer almost a full slate of originals. Coming off a 60 Minutes (1.0/4) repeat, the third Sunday broadcast of Season 16 of Big Brother (2.1/7) saw a Harry Potter inspired block competition that resulted in some very fetching outfits on the contestants. It also saw the 1-hour BB rise 11% over its July 6 show. Big Brother was the top show ratingswise and the second highest after the 60 Minutes repeat’s 8.10 million, in overall viewers with 6.66 million watching. The rest of CBS’ night wasn’t so bad either with Unforgettable (0.9/3) soaring 29% from the double-digit drop of last week. The network ended the night with freshman Reckless (0.6/2), which was even with its July 6 show.
Not even at all, at least in preliminary ratings, was ABC’s new high tech, high concept competition show Rising Star (1.4/4). After declining since it June 22 debut and then stabilizing last week, the 2-hour live on the East Coast show took a step upward last night with a 17% rise from the week before- that’s the best result since the show’s premiere. Couldn’t hurt that its lead-in Wipeout (1.3/4), the only other original on ABC last night, was up almost the same with a 17% jump over its not so strong July 6th show to a season high. ABC won the night with a 1.2/4 rating among Adults 18-49 while CBS topped in total viewers with 6.22 million watching.
Besides a Brain Game (0.5/2) special at 7 PM that was even with last week’s BG special, Fox was all animated encores last night. NBC, on the other hand, was nothing but repeats on Sunday.