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FRIENDS RATINGS PRESENTED BY DAN
WEEK 28
THOUGH A REPEAT OF CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION ALLOWS NBC'S SOON-DEPARTING SITCOM TO WIN THE NIGHT AND LIKELY THE WEEK FOR THE FIRST TIME ALL SEASON, FRIENDS STRUGGLES MIGHTILY TO FIND A FINAL-RUN AUDIENCE, PULLING A SURPRISINGLY LOW 22 MILLION VIEWERS FOR ITS THIRD-TO-LAST NEW EPISODE
April 22, 2004: Fast National Ratings from Nielsen Media Research
After seven consecutive weeks of repeats, Friends finally returned with a new episode--its third-to-last ever--on Thursday night. Unfortunately, due largely to this enormous gap between new episodes, the show was unable to find anywhere near the audience expected for its final run. The preliminary numbers show the episode with just 21.9 million viewers, and while this may rise slightly, it will still rank just ninth out of the fifteen new episodes that have aired so far this season, well below the season average for first-run episodes. The disappointment illustrates NBC's struggles to inform the nation of Friends' final run. With repeats of the show leading to a much lower Thursday night audience across the board, combined with NBC's overall struggle to keep up with CBS in the ratings, drawing millions of casual viewers back to the network and the program is proving to be much more difficult than anticipated. The good news for Friends is that, with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation airing a repeat, it was the highest-rated show of the night, and also will likely be the top-rated program of the week for the first time all season. Overall, despite missing The Apprentice, Friends helped lead NBC to a win over repeat-driven CBS by a 0.7 average rating.
Just two weeks from its series finale, Friends kicked off the night in first place with a 14.1 rating and a 24 share, somehow below its last new episode, which had a 14.6/22 eight weeks ago. The numbers were still well above the comparable episode from last season, which pulled a 12.0/21 as the seventh-lowest-rated new episode in the history of the program. Following the new episode was an extra Friends repeat, which came away in fourth for the night with a 12.8 rating and a 21 share, equal to the rating pulled by the last Friends encore repeat following a new episode on November 20. Meanwhile, a repeat of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was still good enough for second with a 13.2/21 (up from a 12.5/20 for its last repeat two weeks ago), squeaking by a new episode of ER, which came in third with a 13.1/21 (up slightly from a 12.9/21 for its last new episode two weeks ago). Survivor: All-Stars, which ranked fifth, was somehow able to improve its numbers despite airing against a new episode of Friends, pulling an 11.9/20 (up slightly from an 11.6/19 last week). Will & Grace was in sixth with an 11.1/18 (down significantly from a 12.1/18 eight weeks ago, its last new episode airing on a night when Friends was also new), while a repeat of Without a Trace took seventh with a 9.7/16 (up slightly from a 9.5/16 for its last repeat two weeks ago). Scrubs temporarily returned to Thursday night for the remainder of the season and ended up in eighth with a 9.4/15 (up from an 8.9/13 on November 20, its last new episode airing on Thursday night when Friends was also new).
The series finale of Friends will air in less than two weeks, on May 6, 2004. An hour-long clip show featuring classic scenes from the show's ten-year history will air at 8:00 ET/PT (7:00 CT/MT), followed by the hour-long finale at 9:00 ET/PT (8:00 CT/MT). Later, at 11:35 ET/PT (10:35 CT/MT), The Tonight Show with Jay Leno will take place with the cast of Friends on the set of Central Perk. In the season-to-date ratings, as of last week, Friends is in fifth with a 12.7/20 average, trailing CSI: Crime Scene Investigation's first-place 16.2/24, as well as both nights of American Idol and The Apprentice, tied with Survivor: All-Stars, and ahead of ER's seventh-place 12.5/20. Of course, Friends' average is severely diluted by the number of reruns NBC has been forced to air because of the lower number of new episodes agreed on for the show's final season. To view the complete ratings chart for season ten of Friends, use the link in the chart near the top of the page. The final countdown continues, as Friends will air its penultimate episode next week. Just two new Friends episodes remain!
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