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DAN'S FRIENDS RATINGS
WEEK FIVE
DESPITE APPEARING TO SINK BELOW 20 MILLION VIEWERS, FRIENDS OUTPERFORMS GAME FIVE OF THE WORLD SERIES, AGAIN RANKING SECOND FOR THE NIGHT BEHIND CSI
October 23, 2003: Fast National Ratings from Nielsen Media Research
Unlike last week, NBC and CBS decided to go head-to-head with the Major League Baseball Playoffs on Thursday night, and the results brought millions more people to network television. Friends, along with CSI and ER, managed to pull higher ratings than Game Five of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Florida Marlins. However, up against baseball and without a ratings boost from Joey and Rachel's romantic storyline, which ended in its last new episode, Friends appears to have sunk below 20 million viewers for the first time since May 8, the week before the season nine finale. Though the results will likely be a bit higher when the final numbers are released, the preliminary numbers indicates that the episode risks ending up as one of the ten least-watched in Friends history. Nevertheless, with sweeps beginning next week, the program should see constant improvement for most of the rest of the season. Overall, CBS managed to win the night again, beating out Fox's primetime baseball coverage by a 1.2 average rating and NBC by a strong 2.5 average rating.
Based on the preliminary numbers, Friends came away in second place with a 12.2 rating and a 20 share, down significantly from a 14.0/22 for the last new episode two weeks ago. The numbers are also well below those for the comparable episode last season, which pulled a 16.1/25. Baseball was no match for CSI, which again won the night with ease and was the only show to see its rating increase from its last new episode with a 16.6/24 (up slightly from a 16.4/25 two weeks ago). ER resumed its typical third-place position with an 11.9/19 (down significantly from a 13.4/21 two weeks ago). The baseball playoffs finished in fourth with an 11.7/20, slipping from the night before due to the increased competition. Survivor: Pearl Islands closed the margin between itself and Friends to less than one rating point, taking fifth with an 11.4/18 (down slightly from an 11.5/18 last week), while Without a Trace came in sixth with a 10.1/16 (down from a 10.6/17 two weeks ago). Will & Grace increased NBC's audience out of Scrubs for the first time this season with a seventh-place 9.3/14 (down slightly from a 9.5/14 two weeks ago), while Scrubs was in eighth with a 9.2/14 (down from a 9.9/15 two weeks ago). Coupling, which will be on hiatus through sweeps, sunk to another series low in ninth with a 6.8/10 (down significantly from a 7.7/12 two weeks ago).
After much speculation and many last-minute negotiations, it is now unambiguous that this really is the final season of Friends. After the show's first stint as the number-one overall program in its eighth season, CSI overtook it last year. As of last week, CSI retains the lead with a 16.1/24 average, well ahead of Friends' second-place 13.7/22 and ER's third-place 12.7/20. To view the complete ratings chart for season ten of Friends, use the link in the chart near the top of the page. As the season wraps up, NBC will launch a campaign called "Friends to the End" and will air viewers' six all-time favorite episodes in the weeks before May sweeps. This will help account for the lower number of new episodes planned for the final season. The final episode of Friends, a two-hour finale set for May 20, 2004, is guaranteed to be the biggest television event in years. November sweeps begin next Thursday with a forty-minute Friends episode that should end the program's recent downward trend.
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