Effects of the Writers’ Srike on the Nielsen Ratings

So just what kind of effect has the Writers Guild strike had on the television ratings? Absolutely nothing.

After a couple of months of the writers being on strike, with all of the pre-written and filmed shows already aired, it seems the audience isn’t minding too terribly much. Of course, the holiday season usually has a few weeks of repeats anyway, but this is after several other weeks of repeats.

Yet, after all this worry, it seems we’d rather watch repeats of our favorite shows than go exploring and finding something new and different to watch. The number one rated show was a Sunday night football game, but frankly it was the Redskins at Vikings, so it would have scored up there in audience numbers anyway. And the number two show? CSI: Miami. A scripted show. The number three show was 60 Minutes, pretty much where it normally is.

In fact, twelve of the top twenty were scripted shows, shows that are always in the top twenty. The top rated reality show was The Biggest Loser finale, and frankly for a reality show finale, it was probably right on target ranking up there in sixth place. The Amazing Race ranked in fifteenth place, probably where it would normally be, especially since it was against the number one ranked Sunday Night Football. A new reality show made its appearance that week, Clash of the Choirs, on each of the nights from Monday through Thursday, but only ranked in the top twenty on the last two nights. Only one holiday show, a showing of the movie The Santa Clause 2, ranked.

After all this, what are we left with? We’re left with results that aren’t much different than they would have been a few months ago. For comparison, I checked this against the Nielsen ratings from October 15 through 21. It makes for a hard comparison as The Amazing Race hadn’t started back up yet, and Survivor and Dancing With the Stars were still on, as were the baseball playoffs. Yet, the CSI shows were still figuring prominently as were Two and a Half Men. There were eleven scripted shows instead of the current twelve in the top twenty.

As much as I support the Writers Guild efforts and everything they are standing for here by sticking to their guns and staying out on strike, it doesn’t seem like they’re making much of a difference in our viewing habits. There maybe be a few premature deaths to shows, but the solid shows that were figuring in the ratings before, still are. It seems the area of programming that is most hit is in the late night talk shows where those guys seem to change their minds weekly on how they’ll handle it. In the meantime, I don’t see the strike hurting the networks at all.

If you’d like to see exactly how the Top 20 ranked, see the full list over in our forums, Latest Nielsen Ratings for Week Ending on 12/23/07.

Popularity: 3% [?]