“Entertainment Tonight” Hits Podium as Olympics Open

Entertainment Tonight (2.0 live plus same day national Nielsen rating, up 5% from the week before) was the only magazine and the sole top tier first-run syndie scoring a week to week increase in the session ending July 25.  “ET” averaged about 3.0-million daily viewers.

The Tokyo Olympics, which began on July 23, took a blowtorch to the week’s ratings.  Besides the stronger-than-usual competition, the games caused massive preemptions on NBC affiliates.  In addition programming on most networks did not air for more than an hour on July 20 due to coverage of the launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

Among the quiz and give-away programs Jeopardy (4.7, down 2%) slipped with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts reading the answers.  Family Feud (5.5, unchanged) remained the genre leader.

In daytime Live with Kelly and Ryan (1.7, steady) finished first in talk for the 11^th week in a row and forged ahead 14% in the advertiser-coveted W25-54 demographic.  Reruns of Dr Phil (1.4, down 7%) took second.

Also worthy of note: sophomore Tamron Hall (0.7, steady), which was in repeats on four of the five days, tied the long-running Ellen DeGeneres (0.7, down 13%); and top ten newcomer Drew Barrymore (0.5, steady) matched veteran Dr Oz (0.5, steady) for a second straight week.