Syndication recovers from “March Madness”

Review based on a national syndicated rating report for the week ending April 7.

With the annual NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament winding down several of the top syndicated strips staged a ratings rebound and scored double digit increases in the session ending April 7.

Lighting up the magazine list Entertainment Tonight (2.9 live plus same day national Nielsen rating, up 12% from the week before) and Extra (1.1, up 10%) nailed the biggest percentage improvements. Inside Edition (2.9, up 7%) landed in a tie with “ET.”

Also worthy of note Access (1.3, steady) and the just renewed Daily Mail TV (1.0, steady) were among the very few strips of any type to hold all of their ground both week to week and year to year.

At the top of the entire chart Judge Judy (three-week high 6.8, up 1%)aired repeats on four of the five days, but still outperformed all shows in the household ratings for a milestone 39 weeks in a row.

Turning to the talkers Dr. Phil (2.7, steady), also partially in reruns, was #1 in the category for a 135^th consecutive week.

Live with Kelly and Ryan (2.3, up 10%) captured second place in talk for a sixth straight week over Ellen DeGeneres (1.9, up 12%), which returned to original shows after a week of encore episodes.

The biggest loser among the yakkers was Wendy Williams (1.1, down 27%), which plunged with repeat episodes and fell behind Maury (1.4) and Steve (1.2).

On the positive side, game show winners were Jeopardy (6.1, up 9%) and Wheel of Fortune (6.1, up 11%). Family Feud (6.0, down 2%) was not far behind.

Dateline (1.3, steady) extended its winning streak to 30 weeks in the true crime genre and grew 20% among W25-54.