Gray Leads To Sunday Silver

The top spot on the Sunday shows is never really that interesting: it’s been reliably “Meet the Press” for a long time–although if you believe Arianna Huffington, you’re better off staying in bed than getting up to watch it.

No, the reason to watch the Sunday show ratings is to track the silver medal. We’ve been tracking the Sunday shows for months now and watching a trend develop. And it certainly seems to be a trend.

After long struggling to gain an audience and a rhythm for the show, George Stephanopoulos’s “This Week,” which Sunday had a big exclusive with former FBI Director L. Patrick Gray, finished second for the fifth time in the last six weeks, beating CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Nationally, ABC took a 2.2/7 to Face’s 2.1/6 and Fox finished fourth with 1.2/3. ABC was up 10 percent week-to-week while ‘Meet’ and ‘Face’ were even. Fox went down a bit.

“This Week” ranked #1 in half of the top 12 markets, and beat ‘Face’ in an additional three markets–meaning that in fully three-quarters of the top markets “Face” got swept by the long-time bronze winner. Additionally, Fox beat ‘Face’ in a quarter of the top 12: Dallas (#7), Atlanta (#9), and Detroit (#10).

Locally, continuing their odd week-to-week trade-off, Chris Wallace beat Stephanopoulos in D.C., 1.8/5 to 1.4/4.

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