For the first time this summer, reality shows finished both first and second in the week's viewership rankings.
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Right behind them was Mark Burnett's Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader Fox game show, which averaged 9.97 million viewers as So You Think You Can Dance's Thursday night lead-in -- a performance good enough to place it third in the week's viewership rankings for the week ending June 17 (Are You Smarter Than 5th Grader had ranked No. 10 the previous week).
So You Think You Can Dance's Wednesday night broadcast (8.94 million, No. 11) and Fox's Monday night broadcast of Hell's Kitchen's second third season episode (8.85 million, No. 12) also ranked among the week's Top 20 most-watched programs. NBC's two-hour Wednesday night broadcast of Last Comic Standing's fifth season premiere averaged 6.94 million viewers and finished No. 26 in the week's viewership rankings.
Although two NBA Finals broadcasts prevented reality shows from repeating last week's feat of finishing first, second, third, and fourth in the week's Adults 18-49 demographics ratings rankings, unscripted shows still dominated the top of the week's Adults 18-49 rankings.
Hell's Kitchen (which ranked No.4 the previous week) ranked No. 1 for the week, followed by So You Think You Can Dance's Thursday broadcast (which tied for No. 2 the previous week), ABC's NBA Finals Game 3 broadcast, America's Got Talent (which slid from tied for No. 2 the previous week to No. 4), ABC's NBA Finals Game 3 broadcast, So You Think You Can Dance's Wednesday broadcast (which slid from No. 1 the previous week to No. 6), Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader (which climbed from No. 8 the previous week to No. 7), and Last Comic Standing (No. 8).
Amazing, although it averaged only slightly more than half the viewers (4.89 million) that Fox's Monday at 9PM ET/PT broadcast of Hell's Kitchen's second episode drew, a special Monday at 8PM ET/PT encore broadcast of Hell's Kitchen's third season premiere also performed well in the Adults 18-49 ratings and finished No. 15 in the week's Adults 18-49 rankings. NBC's Sunday night encore broadcast of Last Comic Standing's two-hour fifth season premiere also fared similarly and finished tied for No. 19 in the week's Adults 18-49 rankings.
Although they didn't rate among the week's Top 20 (or even Top 30) most-watched programs and had to air against both So You Think You Can Dance and Last Comic Standing, ABC's Wednesday night broadcasts of American Inventor's second Season 2 episode and The Next Best Thing's third episode also ranked among the week's Top 20 Adults 18-49 programs. American Inventor's 9PM ET/PT broadcast and The Next Best Thing's 8PM ET/PT broadcast ranked No. 17 and No. 19 respectively.
Both of Mark Burnett's new summer reality shows -- CBS' Pirate Master and Fox's On the Lot -- continued to deliver poor ratings. Thursday night's broadcast of Pirate Master's third episode averaged 5.39 million viewers (a new series low) and finished a distant second (behind Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader) in its time period. After "rebounding" to 3.25 million viewers during its first broadcast of its new Tuesday nights-only format, last week's On the Lot broadcast averaged only 2.77 million viewers and finished fifth (behind America's Got Talent and CBS, ABC and Univision's programming) in its Tuesday at 8PM ET/PT time period.
While American Inventor and The Next Best Thing both fared better than Pirate Master in the week's viewership rankings, ABC's two other new early summer reality offerings -- The Ex-Wives Club and Fast Cars & Superstars -- weren't so lucky. Monday night's broadcast of The Ex-Wives Club's third episode delivered the show's worst ratings yet and averaged only 4.11 million viewers. Fast Cars & Superstars' third, four and fifth broadcasts all stalled in the ratings and averaged fewer than four million viewers each.
Below is a full listing of where all last week's reality and game show broadcasts finished in the week's broadcast network viewership rankings. Last week, the five major broadcast networks aired 95 primetime programs. A special Sunday night repeat broadcast of The CW's Supernatural drama finished 95th, averaging only 1.01 million viewers.
