'Fringe' Audience Soars In Second Week

The second episode of the J.J. Abrams series picked up an 8.2 rating/13 share, according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research. It lost nearly 7 percent of the audience brought in by the season premiere of "House" on Fox, but it didn't matter. The 8.2 was a 39 percent increase over the series premiere, which was considered anemic at best. It also helped lead Fox to a Tuesday night win.

So what was the difference maker between Week One and Week Two of "Fringe"? The obvious would be the "House" lead-in, but another thing that could be considered a boost was the Sunday encore of the premiere episode, which was heavily hyped during Fox's National Football League coverage earlier in the day. That encore scored several million viewers -- challenging the first-run numbers of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" earlier in the week.

"Fringe" won its time slot, beating out the second hour of "The Biggest Loser" on NBC, which had just 65 percent of "Fringe's" audience as well as the season finale of "Big Brother 10," which earned a 4.9/8. "Primetime Live" had a special on UFOs, which only attracted a 3.2/5 for ABC, while "Privileged" didn't have numbers reported by Zap2it, but it was estimated to be around a 1.6/3.

The boost is good news for "Fringe," but right now and probably for the next couple of weeks until a more stable number is observed, the higher rating might be considered a spike. The larger second week did push "Fringe's" Stability Index Rating -- a number compiled by SyFy Portal that compares overnight ratings high versus its average rating -- at a shaky 86.6 early in the season. "Sarah Connor," in comparison, as a Stability Index Rating of 92.7, although it is pulling in series lows in ratings.

Fox had even better news when it came to a key advertising demographic of adults between the ages of 18 to 49. The network scored a 5.3, almost twice as much as NBC did in second place. ABC and CBS finished locked up for third with a 2.0, while The CW took a 1.4.

For the night, however, Fox won with an 8.5/13, followed by CBS with a 5.2/9.

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 televisions turned on that was tuned to the specific program. These numbers typically shift when final ratings are issued.

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