Buoyed by the premiere and encore editions of original telefilm The Even
Stevens Movie, Disney Channel ranked first last week with household
ratings.
Disney averaged a 2.2 household rating June 9-15, placing it ahead of 2003
primetime leader Turner Network Television, which scored a 1.9 during that span,
according to an ABC Cable Networks Group analysis of Nielsen Media Research
data.
Lifetime Television and USA Network were tied for third with a 1.7, ahead of
the 1.6 recorded by Nickelodeon.
Rounding out the top 10: Cartoon Network with a 1.5; TBS Superstation at a
1.4; Fox News Channel and Discovery Channel, the latter aided by its Walking
with Cavemen special, both with a 1.3; and A&E Network with a 1.1.
Gauged on a total-day basis, kids-skewing networks Nick, Cartoon and Disney
ranked first, second and third: the former earned a 1.5, while the latter pair
both averaged a 1.2. Lifetime and TNT were next, each with a 1.1, according to
the ABC Cable analysis.
Among key adult demos, MTV: Music Television, boosted by fresh installments
of The Osbournes and Real World XIII, was first with the 18-34
set, averaging 539,000 of those viewers in primetime, according to a Turner
Entertainment Research analysis of Nielsen data.
USA was tops among adults 18-49 with an average of just over 1 million of
those watchers, while TNT garnered 1.06 million adults 25-54 on average.
The June 13 premiere of The Even Stevens Movie, featuring the entire
cast of the popular series, at 8 p.m. ranked fourth for the week with a 3.7
average, while its immediate replay that night ranked 18th.
Repeats of the film June 14 and 15 also finished in the top 20, while a July
12 reair of Disney original movie Cadet Kelly -- showcasing Even
Stevens' Christy Carlson Romano and Lizzie McGuire's Hillary Duff --
finished in a tie for 10th place with a 2.9 average.
USA's June 15 presentation of theatrical Meet the Parents, the second
hour of The New TNN's coverage of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.'s
WWERaw June 9 and Discovery's Caveman special were all
tied for first for the week with a 3.7 average.
Back on the Disney beat, the service recorded a number of records: its
highest average weekly total viewers in primetime with 2.65 million; its
best-ever primetime weekly rating among its target audience kids 6-11 with a
5.9; its highest kids 6-11 total-day rating with a 2.8; and its best tweens 9-14
total-day weekly average of a 2.5.
