Ratings for syndicated newsmagazines broke out of the
holiday doldrums for the week ending Jan. 3 as the arrest of Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen
captured headlines and viewers. Sheen
was arrested on Christmas day after his wife told police that he had pulled a
knife on her and threatened to have her killed.
Elsewhere, most talkers, court shows and games were also significantly
higher.
CBS Television Distribution's Entertainment Tonight snared the lion's share of the magazine
audience, jumping 11% both week-to-week and year-to-year to a 4.1. On Dec. 28, ET's Sheen coverage sent ratings up 30% from the week before to a
4.8. Meanwhile, ET Weekend, which also led with the Sheen story, surged 26% to a
new season-high 2.9 and was up 32% over last year at this time. CTD's Inside
Edition gained 7% to a 3.0. Warner
Bros.' TMZ was up 6% to a 1.9 and landed
in a third place tie with NBCU's Access
Hollywood, which was down 10% to a 1.9.
Both CTD's The Insider and
Warner Bros.' Extra climbed 13% to a
1.7.
CTD's The Doctors
scored the largest increase in talk shows, leaping 33% to 2.0. Leader CTD's Oprah was up 11% to 4.0.
CTD's Dr. Phil grew 13% to 2.6
despite featuring an all-repeat week.
Disney/ABC's Live With Regis and
Kelly dropped 14% to 2.5. NBCU's Maury saw his ratings escalate 15% to a
new season-high 2.3. Warner Bros.' Ellen Degeneres was flat at 2.1. CTD's Rachael
Ray remained at a 1.8. NBCU's Jerry Springer advanced 8% to a new
season-high 1.4. NBCU's Steve Wilkos added 8% to 1.3. Warner Bros.' Bonnie Hunt packed on 11% to a new season-high 1.0. NBCU's Martha
Stewart was steady at 0.7.
Court shows continued to be dominated by CTD's Judge Judy, which improved 5% to 4.4 and
was the highest-rated first run strip in daytime for the sixth straight week,
beating Oprah by 10%. CTD's Judge
Joe Brown was hot in second place with a 15% jump to a new season-high
2.3. Warner Bros.' People's Court was up 16% to a new season-high 2.2. Warner Bros.' Judge Mathis settled for a 13% hike to a new season-high 1.8. Twentieth's Judge Alex and Twentieth's Divorce Court
each rallied 23% to 1.6, which was a new season-high for Divorce. Warner Bros.' Judge Jeannine Pirro was flat at 1.1.
Among rookies, Sony's Dr.
Oz logged a new season-high 2.8 after being reprocessed the week
before. Twentieth's Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader and Debmar-Mercury's Wendy Williams were both unchanged at
1.6 and 1.1 respectively. Litton's Street Court perked up 17% to a
0.7.
Freshman off-net sitcom champ NBCU's The Office gained 7% to 2.9.
Twentieth's My Name Is Earl
was up 6% to a 1.9. CTD's Everybody Hates Chris was flat at a
1.8.
CTD's Wheel of Fortune
rolled out a 6% increase to 7.0 to top the game shows. CTD's Jeopardy
upticked 4% to a 5.8. Disney/ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,
Debmar-Mercury's Family Feud and
NBCU's Deal Or No Deal were each up
8% to 2.6, 1.4 and 1.3, respectively.
Off-net sitcoms were narrowly mixed. Warner Bros.' Two and a Half Men managed a 5% rise to 4.4, despite the negative
headlines for Charlie Sheen. Twentieth's
Family Guy fell 6% to 3.0. CTD's Everybody
Loves Raymond gained 8% to 2.7.
Warner Bros.' George Lopez
lost 4% to 2.6. Sony's Seinfeld and Twentieth's King of the Hill were unchanged at 2.5
and 2.3, respectively. Warner Bros.' Friends was up 5% to 2.0 and House of Payne remained flat at 1.8.
