Spotted Ratings, Sunday 3/6/11: A Heaping Dose of Reality

WHAT MATTERS:

• The winner of reality premiere Sunday was definitely Secret Millionaire, which came in ahead of any of the show's six-episode run for Fox in late 2008. It built by 89% on its America's Funniest Home Videos lead-in and was also 27% ahead of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition's season high in the hour and about 50% ahead of EM:HE's average to date this season.

• Death, taxes, and The Apprentice dropping. The 2.8 premiere for the fourth celeb edition was down 16% from last year's premiere, once again teaching us (or just me?) not to predict ratings based on Twitter trending topics! I guess it coulda been worse considering how awful the original-recipe version did in the fall, but I have to think the expectations were higher for this heavily-buzzed-about cast.

• In an all-original hour with two unscripted series premieres, credit The Amazing Race for managing to tick up to a season high, and up 29% from its against-Oscar airing last week. I guess somebody had to get lost in the 8:00 reality shuffle, and that was the premiere of America's Next Great Restaurant (1.6). 

	A18-49	Share	Lead	Last	LeLa	Comp	HUT	bcShr	Avg	Rank
America's Funniest Home Videos	1.8	6	n/a	-5%	n/a	4.8	33	27	0%	9/17
Secret Millionaire	3.4	9	89%	n/a	n/a	6.8	38	33	n/a	1/1
Desperate Housewives	3.4	8	0%	10%	42%	8.2	40	29	-8%	13/16
Brothers & Sisters	2.1	6	-38%	11%	10%	5.1	38	29	-12%	12/16
60 Minutes	1.7	5	n/a	21%	n/a	4.9	33	26	-34%	15/20
The Amazing Race	2.7	7	59%	29%	42%	7.5	38	26	17%	1/3
Undercover Boss	2.7	7	0%	4%	8%	8.9	40	23	-16%	13/16
CSI: Miami	2.3	6	-15%	15%	80%	4.9	38	32	-6%	9/15
Dateline Sun	1.4	4	n/a	56%	n/a	5.2	33	21	33%	1/6
America's Next Great Restaurant	1.6	4	14%	n/a	n/a	8.6	38	16	n/a	1/1
Celebrity Apprentice	2.8	7	75%	n/a	n/a	6.6	39	30	n/a	1/1
The Simpsons (oR)	1.7	5	n/a	n/a	n/a	4.9	33	26	n/a	n/a
American Dad! (R)	1.7	5	0%	6%	n/a	4.9	33	26	4%	1/4
The Simpsons	2.8	8	65%	4%	-15%	7.7	38	27	-22%	13/15
Bob's Burgers	2.2	6	-21%	0%	4%	7.7	38	22	-19%	3/6
Family Guy	3.1	8	41%	-6%	0%	8.9	40	26	-19%	12/12
The Cleveland Show	2.2	6	-29%	-15%	-6%	8.9	40	20	-24%	15/15

 KEY
A18-49 - From Nielsen. Adults 18-49 rating. Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 watching the program.
Share - From Nielsen. Adults 18-49 share. Percentage of US TV-watching adults 18-49 watching the program.
Lead - Calculation. Percent difference from lead-in program.
Last - Calculation. Percent difference from previous original episode.
LeLa - Calculation. Percent difference between the show's lead-in and its lead-in for the previous original episode.
Comp - Calculation. Competition. Total rating of all broadcast programs airing against it.
HUT - Calculation. Phrase commonly known as "Households Using TV," but in this case it's actually "Adults 18-49 Using TV." Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 who are watching any TV in that timeslot. A rough approximation based on all ratings/shares in the timeslot. More on this later.
bcShr - Calculation. Broadcast share. Percentage of US national big-5 broadcast TV-watching adults 18-49 watching the program.
Avg - Calculation. Percent difference from the show's average demo for previous original episodes this season.
Rank - Calculation. The rating's rank among the show's original episodes that have aired so far this season.

(R) = Regular-night repeat. These are ranked/averaged as if they were normal shows.
(oR) = Other-night repeat. These are not ranked/averaged in any way.

Will probably develop more disclaimers if this develops further, but the one that jumps out for now is that the stats in blue will be less accurate because for now I'm counting every program as if it maintains that same rating throughout each half-hour of the broadcast. That is almost always not the case in reality.

More Sunday Spotted Ratings.