Ratings: Broadcast Finals for October 31, 2013

How unimportant are the November sweeps to the networks? Of the 13 hours of primetime programing, between the five networks, 13% (3 hours) was repeat programming. The biggest show of the night/week (THE BIG BANG THEORY) kicked off the first day of the sweeps with not one, but two repeat episodes.

With BIG BANG in repeats, the top show of the night is the ABC drama SCANDAL. The episode drew 9.2 million viewers and a 2.9 rating in Adults 18-49. That is even with last week's A18-49 numbers, but up 600k  in total viewers. This helped lead ABC to  rare Thursday win in the demo ratings, beating #2 CBS by a 30% margin. Don't expect this win, or margin of victory, to be matched by ABC anytime soon.

With THE BIG BANG THEORY not airing an original episode, the two CBS comedies fell to series lows. THE CRAZY ONES dropped below a 2.0 rating in the A18-49 ratings, for the first time.

Repeats actually helped NBC on Thursday night. A collection of past SNL Halloween skits posted the best numbers for the 8 p.m. hour this season. The remainder of the low rated night did see slight up-ticks in the numbers, over the previous week.

With baseball taking up most of the FOX schedule the last two weeks, people didn't think about THE X FACTOR airing a new episode on Thursday night. Just 3.3 million viewers tuned in the competition sieres, and it lost to THE VAMPIRE DIARIES in the A18-49 ratings. A very bad showing by FOX. For the night both The CW beat FOX by one tenth of a ratings point in the demo ratings.
 

Thursday Night Network Averages:

ABC - 8.4 million viewers, 2.6 rating in Adults 18-49

CBS - 9.5 million viewers, 2.1 rating in Adults 18-49

CW - 1.9 million viewers, 0.8 rating in Adults 18-49

FOX - 2.6 million viewers, 0.7 rating in Adults 18-49

NBC - 4.2 million viewers, 1.3 rating in Adults 18-49

Time	Net	Program	Viewers*	A18-49	+/-
8:00	ABC	Great Pumpkin/Charlie Brown	6.98	2.2
9:00	ABC	Grey's Anatomy	8.94	2.6	28%
10:00	ABC	Scandal	9.18	2.9	4%
8:00	CBS	The Big Bang Theory [R]	11.80	2.6
8:30	CBS	The Millers	9.67	2.1	-17%
9:00	CBS	The Crazy Ones	8.06	1.9	-16%
9:30	CBS	The Big Bang Theory [R]	8.48	2.1	4%
10:00	CBS	Elementary	9.47	1.8	11%
8:00	CW	The Vampire Diaries	2.07	0.9
9:00	CW	Reign	1.57	0.6	-25%
8:00	FOX	The X Factor	3.25	0.8
9:00	FOX	Glee [R]	1.89	0.6	-40%
8:00	NBC	SNL Halloween [R]	5.32	1.7
9:00	NBC	Sean Saves The World	3.72	1.1	-25%
9:30	NBC	Michael J Fox Show	3.34	1.1	-12%
10:00	NBC	Parenthood	3.67	1.2	10%

* - in millions