“Glee” Ratings Surge To High, “Rudolph” Stronger, Grammy Special Soft

With ABC’s 9PM freshmen comedy block in repeats and CBS’ 9PM hour devoted to the lukewarm Grammy Awards nomination show, FOX’s “Glee” surged to its best numbers of the fall.

The penultimate fall episode of the series posted a strong 3.7 adults 18-49 rating with an average of 8.2 million viewers. Up dramatically from last week’s Thanksgiving Eve airing, the rating also grew more than 12% from the last non-holiday airing.

Preliminary data reveals that the show also drew a whopping 6.0/16 rating in women 18-34, its best number of the season.

Lead-in “So You Think You Can Dance” drew 6.3 million viewers with a 2.3.

But for as successful as “Glee” was, it did not win the night–that honor belonged to CBS’ airing of the annual “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” special. That program drew a 3.8 adults 18-49 rating with an average of 10.7 million viewers; it interestingly grew by 17% from the first to second half-hour.

The aforementioned Grammy Awards special showed a remarkably poor ability to hold its early viewership; a portion of which likely stayed on the network after Rudolph. The show averaged a 2.4 young adults rating with 6.5 million viewers, but the latter half hour only managed a 2.0 with 5.5 million.

NBC and ABC’s respective 10PM duds “The Jay Leno Show” (5.5 million, 1.5) and “Eastwick” (4.3 million, 1.2) both gave up the hour to CBS’s airing of a “Criminal Minds” re-run (8 million, 2.3).

Sources: Nielsen, Media Week