“Judge Judy” ratings jump 13% to rule syndication ratings

Review based on a national syndicated rating report for the week ending July 14.

Once again there was order in the court. 

After weeks of schedule upheaval due to the Women’s World Cup Nielsen champ Judge Judy (five week high 6.3 live plus same day national rating, up 13% from the week before) returned to dominance, outperforming all of syndication in the session ending July 14 despite being in reruns for part of the frame.

Magazines were also lively with five of the top six boasting significant improvements. Compared to last year, Access (1.1) was up the most, growing 10% both annually and weekly to climb into a tie with TMZ (1.1, unchanged). In addition the key W25-54 demo rating for “Access” mushroomed 25%. Also moving up sharply were Extra (0.9, up 13%) and Daily Mail TV (0.9, up 13%). Inside Edition (2.6, up 8%) and Entertainment Tonight (2.5, up 9%) set the pace in the category.

Dateline (1.3, up 8%) surged 20% in the coveted W25-54 age group and captured first place in the true crime genre, while the police procedural Chicago PD (0.9, up 13%) scored a double digit household rating increase.

Talk shows were topped for the 149^th straight week by Dr. Phil (2.2, steady) even though the show was entirely in repeats. Not far behind Live with Kelly and Ryan (1.9, steady) snared second place honors for the 20^th week in a row.

Further back were gabfests Ellen DeGeneres (1.5, up 15%), Maury (1.2, unchanged) and Wendy Williams (1.2, up 33%), which returned from its five-week hiatus.

In newcomer news, comedy-game show Punchline (0.4/1 weighted metered market average, down 33% from its lead-in and July 2018 time periods) completed the first week of a six-week try-out that got underway July 15.