U.S. Television Viewership
Viewer numbers per season of The Practice on ABC.
Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps. The first two seasons include the household rating. Seasons 4 and 5 reached the top 10 rankings.
| Season | Timeslot (Eastern & Pacific Time) |
Season Premiere | Season Finale | TV Season | Viewers (in millions) |
Viewer Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Tuesday 10:00PM | March 4, 1997 | April 8, 1997 | 1996–1997 | 9.2 | #43 |
| 2nd | Saturday 10:00PM (September 20, 1997 to January 3, 1998) Monday 10:00PM (from January 5, 1998) |
September 20, 1997 | May 11, 1998 | 1997–1998 | 10.0 | #82 |
| 3rd | Sunday 10:00PM | September 27, 1998 | May 9, 1999 | 1998–1999 | 12.7 | #34 |
| 4th | September 26, 1999 | May 21, 2000 | 1999–2000 | 17.9 | #8 | |
| 5th | October 8, 2000 | May 13, 2001 | 2000–2001 | 18.3 | #9 | |
| 6th | September 23, 2001 | May 19, 2002 | 2001–2002 | 12.9 | #26 | |
| 7th | Sunday 10:00PM (September 29, 2002 to December 15, 2002) Monday 9:00PM (from January 27, 2003) |
September 29, 2002 | May 5, 2003 | 2002–2003 | 9.8 | #55 |
| 8th | Sunday 10:00PM | September 28, 2003 | May 16, 2004 | 2003–2004 | 9.1 | #63 |
The exposure from its January 30, 2000, post-Super Bowl episode (attracting 23.8 million viewers) plus their weekly lead-in from early 2000 to mid-2001, the then mega-hit Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, helped the series reach its ratings peak.
Read more about this topic: The Practice
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“There was a girl who was running the traffic desk, and there was a woman who was on the overnight for radio as a producer, and my desk assistant was a woman. So when the world came to an end, we took over.”
—Marya McLaughlin, U.S. television newswoman. As quoted in Women in Television News, ch. 3, by Judith S. Gelfman (1976)