Ratings: 'Michael Jackson: Bad25' Falls Short; NBC Wins Night
Tom Brady, not Michael Jackson, is king of Thursday night
Michael Jackson was no match for Tom Brady and the New England Patriots Thursday night.
NBC easily won the night with a Patriots-New York Jets game. The Patriots triumphed, 49-19. The game peaked with 18.8 million viewers at 9 p.m., according to early ratings. (The audience will probably go up for the live sporting event.).
“Bad25,” a Spike Lee documentary saluting the King of Pop, averaged 4.6 million viewers for ABC.
A football overrun pushed back the Fox lineup by 17 minutes. In the 8 p.m. half-hour, Fox drew 17.9 million viewers. By the next half-hour, the audience for “The X Factor” dipped to 8.3 million.
The prime-time averages: NBC with 15.9 million, Fox with 9.4 million, CBS with 6.8 million for reruns, ABC with 4.2 million and The CW with 819,000 for reruns. NBC won the 18-to-49 age group by a wide margin.
A rerun of CBS’ “Person of Interest” attracted 6.8 million viewers and was a bigger draw than the Jackson special. CBS did even better with two reruns of “The Big Bang Theory,” which attracted 7.1 million and 7.3 million.
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Michael Jackson couldn't beat Lady Gaga in the battle of the Thanksgiving specials.
The Spike Lee documentary "Michael Jackson: Bad25" on ABC fell short of last year's "A Very Gaga Thanksgiving," according to preliminary numbers. Meanwhile, NBC took a commanding overall win on the strength of its NFL coverage.
NBC grabbed first place in ratings with a 5.8 rating/18 share in the 18-49 demographic most important to advertisers and was first in total viewers with 15.9 million -- far and away, the best network performance of the night. While the nature of live sports renders the network's numbers approximate, the Patriots-Jets game scored a 6.0/20 in the demo. The game was preceded by "Football Night in America," which posted a 3.7/12 in the demo.
Due to NFL overrun that pushed Fox's primetime schedule back ("The X Factor" began at 8:17), the network's preliminary numbers for the night are unreliable. However, as it currently stands, Fox holds second place in ratings and total viewers with a 3.1/10 and 9.4 million. Aside from "The X Factor," the network also ran "Glee."
CBS, which ran repeats throughout the night, took third place in ratings and total viewers with a 1.7/5 and 6.8 million.
ABC came in fourth in ratings and total viewers with a 1.2/4 and 4.2 million. "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" at 8 drew a 1.2/4 -- down 33 percent from last year's airing -- and had 4 million total viewers. Following a "Modern Family" repeat at 9, the special "Michael Jackson: Bad25 at 9:30 drew a 1.2/4 -- down 25 percent from last year's ABC Lady Gaga special "A Very Gaga Thanksgiving" -- and had 4.5 million total viewers.
http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/ratings-michael-jackson-bad25-falls-short-nbc-wins-night-66256
)..To have that type of attention on his musical genius as opposed to the usual 'everything else' was such a breath of fresh air. I had a perma smile...I was watching it at my sister's place with a ton of other people and we had just put it on the background but everyone was fixated and so into it... And these people weren't really considered fans...But they had nothing but positive things to say...And it brought back so much nostalgia for us all 
