Nielsen TV ratings now counting students away at college

NEW YORK -- As anticipated, the Super Bowl and "American Idol" overshadowed everything on television last week.

But for executives in the TV industry, there was another reason why it was an important week: They finally got the chance to learn what college students think.

It was the first week that Nielsen Media Research figured the viewing habits of students away at school into its weekly averages. And it also coincided with strong showings for some of TV's hottest new shows.

ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" was seen by 24.2 million viewers, its biggest audience since the season premiere in September. "Ugly Betty" on ABC had its third-highest audience ever.

Seven prime-time programs, including those two ABC Thursday dramas, saw their ratings among 18- to 24-year-olds increase by 50 percent or more over the previous two weeks, indicating they are the ones most likely helped by the new college measurements.

NBC's "Scrubs" saw its youthful ratings double, Nielsen said. Other shows to get a lift include "The Office" on NBC, "What About Brian" on ABC, "'Til Death" on Fox and "Gilmore Girls" on the CW.

Television networks have long asked Nielsen to include the viewing habits of students away from home in its ratings, arguing that the preferences of people aged 18 to 24 couldn't accurately be determined without them.

Prior to this week, Nielsen based its estimates on viewing among those young people strictly on those who didn't attend college or were home on vacation.

The Super Bowl between Indianapolis and Chicago on CBS was seen by 93.2 million people, behind only the 1982 "M-A-S-H" finale and the 1996 Super Bowl between Dallas and Pittsburgh as the most-watched TV broadcast of all time.

Fox's "House," benefiting from a prime-time slot following "American Idol," was seen by its biggest audience ever -- 27.3 million people -- last Tuesday. "House" even did better than CBS's "Criminal Minds" on Sunday (26.3 million), which had the ultimate lead-in of the Super Bowl.

The game led CBS to a prime-time average of 23.7 million viewers for the week (12.6 rating, 20 share). Fox was second with 11.4 million (6.7, 10), NBC had 8.2 million (5.3, 8), ABC had 7.4 million (4.9, 8), the CW had 3 million (2.0, 3) and the i network had 680,000 (0.5, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision had a 3.9 million viewer average (2.1, 3), Telemundo had 860,000 (0.5, 1) and TeleFutura had 630,000 (0.4, 1).

ABC's "World News" has been making strides in the evening news race lately, nipping at leader NBC's heels. NBC's "Nightly News" averaged 9.8 million viewers last week (6.8 rating, 13 share), "World News" had 9.6 million (6.6, 12) while the "CBS Evening News" had 7.8 million (5.4, 10).

A ratings point represents 1,114,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 111.4 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Jan. 29-Feb. 4, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "Super Bowl XLI: Indianapolis vs. Chicago," CBS, 93.18 million; "Super Bowl Post-Gun Show" (9:59 to 10:04 p.m. ET), CBS, 81.54 million; "Super Bowl Post-Game Show" (10:04 to 10:26 p.m. ET), CBS, 57.34 million; "American Idol" (Tuesday), Fox, 33.65 million; "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 31.85 million; "House," Fox, 27.34 million; "Criminal Minds" (Sunday), CBS, 26.31 million; "Grey's Anatomy," ABC, 24.18 million; "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 21.49 million; "Deal or No Deal" (Monday), NBC, 16.92 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is a division of CBS Corp. Fox is a unit of News Corp. NBC is owned by General Electric Co. Telemundo is owned by General Electric. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. The i network is owned by ION Media Networks.

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