CNN's election night coverage at 11pm trumped all cable programs for the week. President elect Obama may not be yellow and porous, but the coverage of his convincing victory trumped everything and the best SpongeBob could do was 36th (and 37th and 40th).
The Monday Night Football matchup where the Pittsburgh Steelers put the beat down on my beloved Washington Redskins came in number two for the week. And the beat down got the "Redskins Predict Election" myth back on track - it has predicted 18 out of the last 19 elections correctly. Not shabby. Perhaps not as good of a predictor as the "Law of 14", but hey, not everyone can be "fresh".
Other than the football game, the only other program not related to the election to make the top 20 was the iCarly movie, iGo to Japan. Props to iCarly because a rebroadcast of the movie also came in at #23 with 5.02 million.
With numbers that typically would've place them in the top 10 the 9pm airing of WWE Raw was #24 with 4.98 million viewers, Hannah Montana was #26 with 4.94 million, a regular episode of iCarly was #28 with 4.87 million. The NASCAR Sprint Cup race on Sunday night was #34 with 4.61. Still more election coverage and aftermath analysis made up most of the rest of the top 40.
I'm sure the top cable show list will look different on USA Today when they get around to posting it tonight. I'm not sure why in the data we received Nielsen broke up shows like "Election Night ‘08" on CNN into discreet hours (so I added the air time to the table below as well) even though it was really only one show with a multiple hour duration which would normally only be counted as one show. But, you get to see some of the hourly differences which may amuse at least a few of you.
Nielsen's top cable shows for the week ending November 9, 2008:
| Rank | Shows | NET | DAY(S) | Column1 | Live+SD HH rating | Viewers Live+SD (000) |
| 1 | ELECTION NIGHT 08(S)-11/04/2008 | CNN | TUESDAY | 11:00 PM | 8.3 | 15,209 |
| 2 | NFL REGULAR SEASON L (STEELERS/REDSKINS) | ESPN | MONDAY | 8:30 PM | 8.7 | 14,205 |
| 3 | ELECTION NIGHT 08(S)-11/04/2008 | CNN | TUESDAY | 9:00 PM | 7.0 | 13,172 |
| 4 | ELECTION NIGHT 08(S)-11/04/2008 | CNN | TUESDAY | 10:00 PM | 6.8 | 12,409 |
| 5 | ELECTION NIGHT 08(S)-11/04/2008 | CNN | TUESDAY | 8:00 PM | 6.1 | 11,299 |
| 6 | ELECTION NIGHT 08(S)-11/04/2008 | CNN | TUESDAY | 12:00 AM | 6.1 | 11,039 |
| 7 | AMERICAS ELECTION HQ | FOXNC | TUESDAY | 9:00 PM | 5.4 | 9,454 |
| 8 | AMERICAS ELECTION HQ | FOXNC | TUESDAY | 8:00 PM | 5.4 | 9,322 |
| 9 | ELECTION NIGHT 08(S)-11/04/2008 | CNN | TUESDAY | 7:00 PM | 4.9 | 8,522 |
| 10 | AMERICAS ELECTION HQ | FOXNC | TUESDAY | 10:00 PM | 4.9 | 8,304 |
| 11 | SP RPT/LIVE COVERGE(S)-11/04/2008 | MSNBC | TUESDAY | 11:19 PM | 4.2 | 8,225 |
| 12 | AMERICAS ELECTION HQ | FOXNC | TUESDAY | 11:00 PM | 4.9 | 8,047 |
| 13 | SR/JOHN MCCAIN CONCEDES(S)-11/04/2008 | FOXNC | TUESDAY | 11:18 PM | 4.8 | 7,882 |
| 14 | iCarly MOVIE: GO TO JAPAN | NICK | SATURDAY | 8:00 PM | 4.1 | 7,599 |
| 15 | MSNBC SPECIAL COVERAGE | MSNBC | TUESDAY | 11:00 PM | 3.7 | 7,322 |
| 16 | AMERICAS ELECTION HQ | FOXNC | TUESDAY | 7:00 PM | 4.4 | 7,250 |
| 17 | SP RPT/LIVE COVERGE(S)-11/04/2008 | MSNBC | TUESDAY | 11:58 PM | 3.5 | 7,001 |
| 18 | MSNBC SPECIAL COVERAGE | MSNBC | TUESDAY | 10:00 PM | 3.4 | 6,349 |
| 19 | MSNBC SPECIAL COVERAGE | MSNBC | TUESDAY | 9:00 PM | 3.3 | 6,090 |
| 20 | AMERICAS ELECTION HQ | FOXNC | TUESDAY | 11:29 PM | 3.6 | 5,764 |
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved
