The Voice and How I Met Your Mother Were the Highlights of My Night

The answer to Monday's Trivia Question:  Bumbles Bounce, Island of Misfit Toys and Independent Dentist were all from Rudolph's The Red Nosed Reindeer.

FIRST FIVE: Dan Realson, He Who Shall Not Be Named, Bill McLaughlin, Monica Caraffa, & Elke Raskob

Honorable Mention: Nancy Oboyski

Friday's Cable Top 5

Gold Rush-Discovery 1.9/4.6
TBS Movie-TBS .9/1.8
Anderson Cooper-CNN .9/2.6
American Dad-Adult Swim .8/2.0
Law & Order SVU-USA .8/2.4

Sunday's Broadcast Top 5

NFL Football-NBC 7.6/20.0
60 Minutes-CBS 4.5/17.7
Football Night in America-NBC 3.2/9.1
Survivor-CBS 3.1/11.0
Survivor Reunion-CBS 2.3/8.7

Sunday's Broadcast Trendrr Top 5

Sunday Night Football-NBC 688,879
The Simpsons-FOX 103,145
Survivor Finale-CBS 84,539
Family Guy-FOX 58,955
Jenni Rivera-Univision 57,526

Sunday's Cable Top 5 NA Sunday's Cable Trendrr Top 5 VH1 Diva's 2012-VH! 562,803 The Real Housewives of Atlanta-Bravo 108,345 Dexter-Showtime 94,445 Love & Hip Hop-VH1 58,263 Homeland-Showtime 56,774 Top 5 DVR'ed shows for the week of 11/26-12/2 Modern Family from a 4.7 to a 7.0 (+49%) Big Bang Theory from a 5.5 to a 7.4 (+35%) Revolution from a 2.9 to a 4.6 (+59%) Grey's Anatomy from a 3.1 to a 4.7 (+52%) New Girl-from a 2.3 to a 3.7 (+61%)

The Voice Finals opened with an amazing tribute to the victims of Newton CT where everyone on stage held the names of one of the victims and sang a heart wrenching version of Hallelujah. Perfect and then...back to business. Loved my man Adam in his gray suit sans facial hair.  CeeLo's zebra stripes were fun but it was definitely Droopy and her sparkly top hat that wins the best dressed for finale night.   First up, Nicholas David, my favorite oddball, performed "Great Balls of Fire" and "Fire" in the middle of a real fire. Not good to have a hot set when you're a sweaty dude but this was a very different performance for him and a very cool move to change things up. He had some odd looking moves behind and in front of the piano, but I love him and hope he takes the competition.  Cassadee Pope was next up with "Over You" which she had sung before on the show.  This performance was even better than the first time. She definitely moved her coach, Blake to tears.  I thought her mirrored dress was pretty nice but it had to be very heavy and I'd be scared that one wrong move could cause some serious damage, but it didn't matter, she was awesome.  Then a fun filler performance by Blake and Aerosmith's  who sang "Dude Looks A Lady" accompanied by a shirtless, wig wearing Adam Levine...loved it, but Terry really was channelling his Shirley Partridge moves, did you guys see the similarities?  Nick was back with his big song of the competition..."Lean on Me".  Terry/Shirley's first solo performance of the night was Mr. Misters "Broken Wings" Blake and Cassadee performed "Steve McQueen" together which was fun and then Terry performed his big song of the competition, "I Want to Know What Love is" and Nick and CeeLo in his Zebra shorts outfit sang "Play That Funky Music" oddly enjoyable, especially when a mini CeeLo came out on stage.  Again...oddly enjoyable.  Cassadee performed "Cry Just a Little" for her final song of the competition.  At this point...it's truly any ones game to win.  
I had seen the pilot episode of 1600 Penn last May at the Upfronts.  I decided to rewatch it during the sneak peak after The Voice last night to jog my memory.  I couldn't remember if I liked it or not. News Flash...I'm still not sure.  Bill Pullman as the Prez, Dharma as his 2nd wife, Zander and Marigold their nightmarish kids. Then there's his preggers daughter and Skip the man/child son from his first wife.  Did I laugh...a little.  Would I check it out again...sure.  How I Met Your Mother's 1 hour holiday special was half good and half great. The first part was very much standard HIMYM fare. Marshall jinxed Barney so he couldn't speak. Which is really the only important part of the first half of the show.  Once Barney tricked Ted to release the jinx the show really got started as far as I'm concerned. Finally something good, finally the beginning of the end.  We finally learn of Barney's plot to get Robin and it was a good one.  15 steps including faking his relationship with Patrice and finally proposing.  Yeah...huge sigh of relief.  There were tons of other great moments, but seriously, that's all you need to know and that's all I really cared about.   Real Housewives of Beverly Hills picked up right where it left off last week, with Brandi and Adrienne fighting over some sort of big secret and everyone else freaking out about it all. Of course, the secret still has yet to be revealed, which is totally annoying and makes the show frustrating. Lisa's husband was home recovering from his surgery and whining. Still not sure why Yolanda was added to the cast.  When she's with the girls she can't stand them.  But most of the time, she's off at various music events, working out, doing laundry and rearranging the fruit in her fridge.  She's obsessed with looking good and always talks about it which gets old, fast.  Faye Resnick was back and ripping Brandi apart.  You'd think that Faye would learn never to go to a dinner party with these women...it never ends well.
I Tivo'ed the series finale of Gossip Girl, but still haven't watched it. I couldn't wait to find out who Gossip Girl was all this time, so I had to go online and find out.  I have a feeling that a lot of us haven't seen the show yet and this one I just don't want to ruin for anyone...I will say...I love who it was.  PERFECTION
News & Information:
*Nielsen, my favorite ratings service (I'm being sarcastic) is partnering up with Twitter and releasing a new product in 2013...the Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings.  I think it's about time that social became a part of the equation.  Here's the thing...I'm against Nielsen ratings in general these days.  Sure we need them, they are the industry currency and it's what we use.  But knowing how we all consume and view TV these days, it's important to really get under live viewing and what I call engaged viewing.  In the ad biz, it's important to know who is actually VIEWING your spot, when they are viewing it and where.  My feeling is, if someone is watching a show live and they have so much passion that they are tweeting, facebooking, checking in etc. those viewers are a valueable commodity because they are:  A) watching the show live B) they can be influential and C) they are watching our ads.  So with all of the tools out there, and the ones down the pike, we are all going to need to figure out a way to use this info and take advantage of the knowledge it provides us with. I could go on and on about Nielsen, and Social Ratings, but I don't want anyone to get bored reading this blog...it's just a topic that I feel passionate about myself.
*Discovery cancelled the show American Guns but didn't reveal the reason.  I'm sure we can all speculate the reason Discovery people, but okay, if you want to attempt to be mysterious here, we can go with it.   *A new network is coming, a new network is coming.  This ones going to be different, no I swear, they say this ones IS going to be different.  Participant Media is planning to launch a cable network aimed at 18-34 year olds with programming that will be "inspiring and thought provoking". So far the network doesn't have a name but it is set to launch next summer.  Participant Media acquired The Documentary Channel and should have an initial reach of 40 million cable subscribers.  I thought that Current TV was supposed to be thought provoking and inspiring and aimed at 18-34 year olds...how'd that go?  Shall we get Al Gore to tell us? *One of my favorite TV websites, Hitfix, surveyed TV critics around the country for their Top 10 programs of the year.  You know I love a good list and as the year closes out there will be more and more to come.  Here is the Hitfix Top 10: 10. Sherlock 9. Downton Abbey 8. Parks & Recreation 7. The Walking Dead 6. Girls 5. Game of Thrones 4. Louie 3. Mad Men 2. Homeland 1. Breaking Bad I like HitFix's list better than TV Guides, I'll say that much, but I'm still miffed whenever I see Girls on any list.  I'd replace it with Parenthood. *Showtime's Sunday night finales of Dexter and Homeland were record breakers for the network. Dexter's finale was THE highest rated episode ever for a Showtime original series.  The show deliered 2.7 million viewers during it's 9pm airing and 3.4 million for the night.  Homeland delivered 2.3 million viewers at 10pm and 2.7 million viewers for the night. Once I finish Sons of Anarchy, Dexter is next.  I gotta start watching it.
*Some Hulu facts:

• Hulu will finish 2012 with approximately $695 million in revenue
• This represents an increase of 65% vs. 2011.
• The number of Hulu Plus subscribers has more than doubled over the past year, rising to over 3 million.
• Launching on Apple TV, Nintendo Wii and Wii U, Windows 8 tablets, and a number of new Android tablets and smartphones this year, Hulu Plus can now be accessed from over 320 million connected devices in the US.
• The company grew the number of available Hulu and Hulu Plus titles by over 40%. Hulu now has more than 430 content partners, 60,000 TV episodes, 2,300 TV series, and 50,000 hours of total video.
• Hulu invested more than $500 million in content this year, and since the company launched in October 2007, it has generated over $1 billion for its content partners.
• In 2012, Hulu served more than 1,000 advertisers, an increase of 28% versus last year.

Tuesday's Trivia Question: Snow Miser & Heat Miser are from what Holiday Special? WWTM-Kristy http://watchingwaytoomuch.com kristy@watchingwaytoomuch.com kristy.carruba@watchingwaytoomuch.com