Spotted Ratings, Thursday 8/9/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Summer Olympics began their usual late-Games downturn with Night 14 finishing more than a point behind any previous evening. This rating also fell behind the corresponding night in Beijing (7.3) for just the third time.

• Despite the big Olympics drop-off, many leftover originals on broadcast and cable (including usual leader Burn Notice (1.1)) were also down double-digits. I blame the arrival of the NFL preseason, including a national telecast on ESPN (1.4) which topped the cable evening but also several local telecasts (pre-empting broadcasters) as well as live look-ins on NFL Network (0.4).

OLYMPICS CHART:

FULL TABLE:

	Viewers	A18-49	Last	LeLa	Avg	Rank
Wipeout (R)	3.49	1.1
Wipeout	3.38	1.2	-14%	+0%	-33%	9/9
Rookie Blue	3.80	1.1	-27%	-45%	-17%	8/9
The Big Bang Theory (SR)	5.31	1.4
Two and a Half Men (SR)	4.44	1.2
Big Brother Thu	5.03	1.8	-10%	-14%	-20%	5/5
Person of Interest (SR)	3.60	0.7
Summer Olympics	22.86	7.0	-26%	n/a	-32%	14/14
Raising Hope (SR)	1.82	0.8
Raising Hope (SR)	1.57	0.7
Glee (SR)	1.50	0.5
The Vampire Diaries (SR)	0.79	0.3
The LA Complex (SR)	0.50	0.2

KEY (click to expand)

Viewers - The total number of viewers (age 2+, in millions) that watched the program.
A18-49 - Adults 18-49 rating. Percentage of US TV-owning adults 18-49 watching the program.
Last - A18-49 percent difference from previous episode.
LeLa - A18-49 percent difference between the show's lead-in and its lead-in for the previous episode.
Avg - A18-49 percent difference from the show's average demo for previous original episodes this season.
Rank - The A18-49 rating's rank among the show's episodes that have aired so far this season.

(R) - Repeat.
(SR) - Summer repeat. (for shows not currently in season)

Much more detail on these numbers at the New Daily Spotted Ratings page.

More Spotted Ratings in the Index.