Last Comic Standing: The Nielsens

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on May 29th, 2008

From the NBC press release:

Thursday from 9:30-11 p.m. ET, the season premiere of “Last Comic Standing” averaged a 2.4/6 in 18-49 and 5.9 million viewers overall. Despite facing head-to-head competition from the season finale of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Last Comic” increased from its first half-hour to its third by 4 percent in adults 18-49, by 11 percent in adults 18-34, by 14 percent in men 18-49 and by 15 percent in men 18-34.

On Friday, May 23 at 8 p.m. ET, an encore telecast of “Most Outrageous Moments” delivered a 1.3/5 in 18-49 and 4.7 million viewers overall. At 8:30 p.m., a second rebroadcast of “Most Outrageous Moments” delivered a 1.5/6 in 18-49 and 5.1 million viewers overall. These back-to-back episodes of “Most Outrageous Moments” matched NBC’s highest 18-49 rating in this hour in five weeks.

Read the rest of the release, detailing NBC’s entire week at FutonCritic.com.

And, in an LAT article entitled “Broadcast networks under siege,” Scott Collins marvels at just how far the networks have fallen. He interprets the above numbers thusly:

The broadcast bosses say they’re all about change now. NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker spent an hour last week on Charlie Rose’s PBS show repeating the mantra that his network has to think now about developing material that can work on multiple “platforms,” including online. Easier said than done though. NBC’s “American Gladiators” and “Last Comic Standing” belly-flopped in heavily promoted outings recently (“Comic” drew just 5.7 million total viewers opposite the “Grey’s Anatomy” season finale Thursday), and it’s tough to believe those programs– both cheap reality fare, with little to no replay value– will suddenly turn on a magical cash spigot in a different medium.

Ouch!

Recall that five years ago:

The numbers for Last Comic have been solid, if not spectacular, throughout the summer. According to the Nielsen overnights, the Last Comic finale averaged 8.2 million viewers to win its time slot (final figures are due out later Wednesday). For its nine-week summer run, Last Comic averaged about 8.3 million viewers and last week’s penultimate installment ranked 19th among total viewers, with 8.5 million. (Unlike Dat Phan, Nielsen Media Research does not report average laughs per minute.)

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