TV Hot Spot: News

'Battlestar' Ratings Dip on Sunday

Post by: Sal

"Battlestar Galactica" has moved to Sunday, but the shift couldn't stop its downward-trending ratings.

The critically adored Sci Fi Channel series did a 1.4 household rating and brought in 1.8 million viewers for its Sunday (Jan. 21) midseason premiere. That's down from the 2.2 million viewers who tuned in for the show's October premiere in its original Friday home. Those numbers were down from the 3.1 million who watched the show's second season premiere in July of 2005.

Although "Battlestar Galactica" was clobbered by CBS' extraordinarily popular AFC championship football game, Sci Fi was able to find plenty of positives. The Peabody-winning drama was basic cable's top program for the day among adults 18-49 and was up 60 percent in that demo from the totals for the Dec. 15 midseason finale. The show may have become football counterprogramming, as viewership was particular strong among female viewers, up 68 percent among women 18-49 from the December finale.

Sci Fi got similar numbers from the series premiere of "The Dresden Files," which pulled in 1.7 million viewers, though the freshman drama's 882,000 viewers among adults 18-49 was far below the 1.3 million in the demo for "Battlestar."