Welcome to the third year of Dan's Friends Ratings and The Friends vs. Survivor Ratings Battle! Every Friday, I will post an article about Friends based on the fast national ratings. If you would like to receive these updates, along with Friends episode previews from NBCMV, by e-mail every week, e-mail me at [email] and request to join the Dan's Friends Ratings e-mail list. Using the link below, you can view comprehensive charts of the ratings for the past three seasons of Friends by visiting Dan's Friends Ratings online. http://newmusicandmore.tripod.com/friendsratings.html
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DAN'S FRIENDS RATINGS
THE FRIENDS VS. SURVIVOR RATINGS BATTLE YEAR THREE, WEEK ONE
THE SEASON PREMIERE OF FRIENDS IS THE MOST-WATCHED EVER AS IT RETURNS TO THE NUMBER-ONE SPOT AND DOUBLES UP ON SURVIVOR!
Fast National Ratings for September 26, 2002
Friends premiered its ninth season and soared to new heights on Thursday night, easily ranking as the top show of the night and reclaiming its spot as the number-one show on television! The final numbers, which are due out soon, will be even higher, but for now, the preliminary numbers show the episode having 33.3 million viewers. The last new episode, which was last season's hour-long finale, had 33.4 million viewers based on the preliminary numbers and ended up with a Thursday night record of 34.9 million viewers. At this point, it appears this episode will rank third overall behind the episode that aired after the 1996 Super Bowl and last season's finale. It has already clinched the title of the most-watched season premiere in Friends history!
Based on the preliminary ratings, Friends had the highest numbers of any half-hour in the new television season, a 20.1 rating and a 31 share. The episode demolished Survivor: Thailand, which came away with a 12.2 rating and a 19 share, down significantly from a 13.2 and a 22 for its premiere last week. During the half-hour that both shows aired, Friends more than doubled Survivor in the ratings! Meanwhile, CSI won the drama battle in premiere week for the first time, placing number two with a 17.9/27 ahead of ER, which came in third with a 16.9/27. Will & Grace was at number four with a 14.1/21. The news was mixed for Scrubs, which did not perform much better following the season premiere of Friends than Inside Schwartz did last year, but still beat Survivor with ease and placed fifth for the night with a 14.0/21. Survivor: Thailand was number six, new NBC comedy Good Morning Miami was number seven with a 12.0/18, and new CBS drama Without a Trace was number eight with an 11.0/18. Overall, NBC continued its "Must-See TV" winning streak with a 15.6/24, though CBS competed well with a 13.7/21.
With Thursday night's huge numbers, Friends is once again the number-one show on television. The show climbed to number one on November 29, 2001, and has not relinquished its position since (other than the summer rerun period between seasons), finishing last season as the most-watched show on television for the first time. Airing its ninth and presumed final season this year, the numbers should continue to dominate. On Sunday, Jennifer Aniston won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and Friends won its first Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series!
For those who are not familiar with the numbers, the rating is the percentage of all television homes tuned to a given show, while the share is the percentage of in-use television homes tuned to the show. For charts of all the ratings data from the past three years and Friends episode previews, visit Dan's Friends Ratings. The link is provided at the top of this article. Be sure to check out the rest of Planet Dan, as well. I will post the final numbers here when the become available...
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