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    Hallmark rates high during the holidays; Nielsen week in review

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments1305 Views
    General view of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting ceremony on Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021, in New York. (Photo by Christopher Smith/Invision/AP)

    By David Bauder, Media Writer

    NEW YORK (AP) --

    It has the makings of a blue Christmas for Leah. She's turning 30 on Christmas Eve, the same day she'll be a bridesmaid at her brother's wedding.

    But wait — her childhood crush is back in town. Sounds like a movie premise guaranteed to tug at heartstrings, and no one knows how to do that this time of year like the Hallmark Channel.

    That movie with Emily Osment in the starring role, "A Very Merry Bridesmaid," and another premiere last weekend, "Sister Swap: Hometown Holidays," are part of an assembly line of holiday fare at Hallmark. Both reached nearly 3 million viewers, the Nielsen company said.

    Hallmark was the most-watched entertainment cable channel last week, as it often is as the holidays approach. The network scores particularly well among its target audience of women ages 25-to-54.

    Broadcast networks are rolling out their own holiday fare, with NBC's special surrounding the Christmas tree lighting in Rockefeller Center the most popular last week.

    NBC reached 5.3 million people for its live production of "Annie!" Live television musicals are losing their pull ever since becoming a semi-regular feature when a production of "The Sound of Music" surprised people by drawing more than 18 million viewers in 2013. "Annie! Live" did beat ABC's interview with Alec Baldwin on the "Rust" movie set shooting, which was a direct competitor.

    Meanwhile, Fox rode football to a win in the weekly ratings, averaging 6.4 million viewers in primetime last week. NBC had 6.1 million, CBS had 5.3 million, ABC had 2.9 million, Univision had 1.4 million, Ion Television had 930,000 and Telemundo had 900,000.

    Fox News Channel led cable networks with an average of 2.42 million viewers in prime time. ESPN had 2.05 million, Hallmark had 1.53 million, MSNBC had 1.16 million and Freeform had 1.02 million.

    ABC's "World News Tonight" led the evening news ratings race with an average of 8 million viewers. NBC's "Nightly News" had 7.4 million and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.2 million.

    For the week of Nov. 29-Dec. 5, the 20 most-watched programs in primetime, their network and viewerships.

    1. NFL Football: Denver at Kansas City, NBC, 17.51 million.
    2. NFL Football: Dallas at New Orleans, Fox, 16.7 million.
    3. "NFL Pregame," NBC, 12.12 million.
    4. College Football: Michigan vs. Iowa, Fox, 11.66 million.
    5. NFL Football: Seattle at Washington, ESPN, 10.9 million.
    6. "NFL Postgame," Fox, 10.46 million.
    7. "60 Minutes," CBS, 10.3 million.
    8. "College Football Pregame," Fox, 9.74 million.
    9. "NFL Pregame," Fox, 9.73 million.
    10. "Football Night in America, Part 3," NBC, 9.34 million.
    11. "NCIS," CBS, 7.34 million.
    12. "Yellowstone," Paramount, 7.28 million.
    13. "College Football Postgame," CBS, 7.23 million.
    14. "The Voice" (Tuesday), NBC, 6.76 million.
    15. "Young Sheldon," CBS, 6.59 million.
    16. "The Voice" (Monday), NBC, 6.48 million.
    17. "Christmas in Rockefeller Center," NBC, 6.18 million.
    18. "Blue Bloods," CBS, 5.81 million.
    19. "Survivor," CBS, 5.63 million.
    20. "Ghosts," CBS, 5.46 million.

    Tags:HallmarkNFLNielsen



    Ex-OpenAI engineer who raised legal concerns about the technology he helped build has died

    Saturday, December 21, 2024
    Suchir Balaji poses for a photo in Hawaii in 2018. Balaji was a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who died in November 2024. (Balaji Ramamurthy via AP)

    Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26.

    Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before quitting in August. He was well-regarded by colleagues at the San Francisco company, where a co-founder this week called him one of OpenAI's strongest contributors who was essential to developing some of its products.

    "We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news and our hearts go out to Suchir's loved ones during this difficult time," said a statement from OpenAI.

    Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on Nov. 26 in what police said "appeared to be a suicide. No evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation." The city's chief medical examiner's office confirmed the manner of death to be suicide.

    His parents Poornima Ramarao and Balaji Ramamurthy said they are still seeking answers, describing their son as a "happy, smart and brave young man" who loved to hike and recently returned from a trip with friends.

    Balaji grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and first arrived at the fledgling AI research lab for a 2018 summer internship while studying computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He returned a few years later to work at OpenAI, where one of his first projects, called WebGPT, helped pave the way for ChatGPT.

    "Suchir's contributions to this project were essential, and it wouldn't have succeeded without him," said OpenAI co-founder John Schulman in a social media post memorializing Balaji. Schulman, who recruited Balaji to his team, said what... Read More

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