Carriage dispute? What carriage dispute?
Time Warner Cable subscribers in Los Angeles, New York and Dallas may be steamed that CBS-owned stations have been blocked for more than a week, causing them to miss episodes of "Under the Dome" as well as some preseason NFL games and the PGA championship. But CBS seems to be doing just fine in ratings.
CBS was the highest rated and most watched network for the first full week of blackouts, according to Nielsen. For the week that ended Aug. 11, the network brought in an average of 5.51 million viewers and generated a rating of 1.2 in the coveted adults 18-49 demographic.
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NBC, the runner up for the week, got an average of 4.18 million viewers.
CBS had six of the week's 10 most watched telecasts. Last Monday's episode of "Under the Dome," the thriller series based on a Stephen King novel about a small town trapped under a mysterious dome, won the week in viewers with 10.4 million. The show, which has delivered unusually high numbers for a summer drama, scored a 2.6 rating in the key demo.
"Big Brother," the controversial reality show, has also ranked high in ratings and viewership, bringing in 6.43 million viewers on Wednesday, 6.61 million on Thursday and 7.14 million on Sunday. The telecast on Sunday night was the show's largest audience of the summer.
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CBS said the Time Warner Cable dispute has blacked out CBS stations for 3.2 million customers in the three affected markets.
While national prime time viewership is strong, local CBS stations have seen ratings decrease since negotiations broke down. Those stations carry local news broadcasts, which are important revenue generators.
The media giants are fighting over the increased fees CBS wants to charge Time Warner Cable to carry its local television stations.
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