Fringe Audience As High As Ever

Dr. Noble may have to expand his Harvard University lab, because the audience who wants to see his work is growing leaps and bounds.

"Fringe" picked up a 7.7 rating/12 share, according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research. It's the best numbers for the  Fox series since its second airing Sept. 16 when it picked up an overnight rating of 8.2/13 following the season premiere of "House," and was up 11.6 percent from its previous week's audience.

"Fringe" finished second in the hour in terms of total audience to "The Mentalist" on CBS, which earned a 9.3/14, but actually led the 9 p.m. timeslot in the key advertising demographic of adults 18 to 49. It also finished ahead of "The Biggest Loser" on NBC and "Scrubs" on ABC, which managed a 7.4/11 and a 3.0/5 respectively, Zap2it reports.

The audience for "Fringe" was starting to sour as late as its final episodes in late November and early December before the holiday break. During that time period, the series was averaging a 5.4/8 leading to a 6.1/9 series average up through last week's episode. The current rating would represent an audience growth of more than 42 percent during that time period, and more than 26 percent above its season average, which climbed to near-highs since it was coupled with "American Idol" on Fox. 



Probably the only damper on the parade is how much audience for "American Idol" is sticking around for "Fringe." The show lost 48 percent of the "American Idol" audience lead-in, but in all honesty, no shows are reaching "American Idol" levels on Tuesday night, or really this season.

Thanks to "American Idol," Fox won the night with an 11.2/17, well ahead of the 8.7/13 posted by CBS. In the 18 to 49 audience demo, Fox nearly doubled the 3.9 earned by NBC with a 7.5. CBS wasn't even in that race with a 2.9 while ABC managed just s 2.0, twice that of The CW.

Fast Nationals usually provide a snapshot of what Americans are watching by pulling numbers from the top urban markets that includes both live viewing and same-day timeshifted viewing. A rating point generally represents more than 1.1 million households while the share indicates the percentage of televisionsturned on that was tuned to the specific program. These numbers typically shift when final ratings are issued.