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Dancing with the Stars 5

Ratings: ABC's 'Dancing with the Stars 5' premieres big, wins night

By Christopher Rocchio and Steve Rogers, 09/25/2007

ABC's Dancing with the Stars returned with a ratings bang last night, with its fifth-season premiere broadcast ranking as Monday night's most-watched program.

Dancing with the Stars 5 averaged 21.2 million total viewers and a 5.8/15 Adults 18-49 rating/share during its 8-9:30PM ET/PT broadcast -- numbers that easily ranked it first in the overall 8-9:30PM time period, according to Live Plus Same Day ratings data from Nielsen Media Research. (However, although it beat NBC's 9-10PM ET/PT season premiere broadcast of Heroes by nearly eight million total viewers during their 9-9:30 overlap period, Heroes actually slightly edged Dancing among Adults 18-49 during the head-to-head period.)

Dancing with the Stars 5's debut outperformed the Fall 2006 third-season premiere of the reality dancing competition series -- which aired on a Tuesday night with a two-hour premiere -- in both average total viewers (21.2 million vs. 20.2 million) as well as among Adults 18-49 (5.8/15 rating/share vs. 5.7/15 rating/share).

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However Dancing with the Stars 5's debut fell short of Dancing with the Stars' Spring 2007 fourth-season premiere among both total viewers (21.2 million vs. 21.7 million) and Adults 18-49 (5.8/15 vs. 6.3/16), leaving Dancing with the Stars 4's premiere numbers to remain as the reality franchise's best-ever season premiere results.

Dancing with the Stars 5's debut did manage to outdeliver nearly all of Dancing with the Stars 4's Monday night broadcasts and generated ABC's top viewer and young adult numbers in the time period since March 19, 2007 -- the night that Dancing with the Stars' fourth season premiered.

Combined with ratings for The Bachelor's eleventh-season premiere broadcast (9:30-11PM), Dancing with the Stars 5's debut numbers left ABC ranked as the No. 1 network on the opening Monday night of the Fall 2007 primetime programming season with an average of 15.4 million total viewers as well as a 4.7/12 rating/share among Adults 18-49.

(Photo credit ABC)

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