Critics' fave 'Mad Men' returns to big numbers
The highest-profile premiere on ad-supported cable last week was “Mad Men,” which had its season three premiere on AMC at 10 p.m. Sunday night.
But not lagging that far behind in buzz, if to far less critical rapture, was “Khloe and Kourtney Take Miami,” which had its series debut on E!, also at 10 p.m.
And as it turns out, there was surprise winner in the ratings battle between the Drapers of New York and the Kardashians of Miami.
It wasn't high-brow drama.
According to Nielsen, “Mad Men” drew 2.769 million viewers from 10 to 10:54 p.m., a series high that was also up 33 percent over season two’s premiere episode.
Yet the Emmy-winning series just edged out “Khloe and Kourtney Take Miami,” which drew 2.668 million viewers from 10 to 10:45 p.m. That was E!’s biggest audience for a series since a 2002 episode of “The Anna Nicole Show.”
For the week, “Mad Men” ranked 146th in total viewers on basic cable; “Kourtney and Khloe” ranked 164th.
But the Miamians pulled ahead of the New Yorkers when both channels re-ran their episodes in the 11 p.m. hour. “Mad Men” had 879,000 viewers from 11 p.m. to 12:02 a.m., while “Kourtney and Khloe” had 1.139 million from 11:15 to midnight. That put the E! reality show ahead of its critically acclaimed competitor by a total of 3.807 million viewers to 3.648 million.
(According to AMC, another airing of “Mad Men” at 1 a.m. pushed the night’s total viewership to more than 4 million.)
The victory of “Kourtney and Khloe,” a spinoff of E!’s “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” was even more decisive in the younger-adult demographics: Among viewers 18-49, the series drew 2.022 million in its first airing, landing it in the No. 8 spot for the week in that demographic in ad-supported cable. The first airing of “Mad Men” drew 1.2 million 18-to-49 viewers, a big increase from last year’s season premiere, but not enough to put it in the top 50 in that category.
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