Tuesday's season premiere of CBS' The Amazing Race 5 got the series off to a great start, with the first post-victory broadcast of last year's Emmy-award winning reality show winning its time period and drawing the program's best rating performance since the finale of The Amazing Race 3.
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According to the final National Nielsen ratings for July 6, airing from 9:30-11:00PM ET/PT after the season premiere of CBS' Big Brother 5, The Amazing Race 5 drew 10.3 million viewers, a 4.3/12 in the Adults 18-49 demographic, a 4.1/12 in Adults 18-34, a 4.6/12 in Adults 25-54, and a 6.4/11 in households. The performance placed the show first in its time period in total viewers, Adults 18-49, Adults 18-34, and Adults 25-54 and second in households.
The Amazing Race 5 premiere also built strongly on its Big Brother 5 lead-in, drawing 750,000 more viewers than the 9.55 million that tuned in for the 8:00-9:30PM ET/PT premiere of the network's long-running annual summer series. The Amazing Race 5 also built slightly on Big Brother 5's performance in Adults 18-49 (4.3/12 versus 3.8/12), Adults 18-34 (4.1/12 versus 3.1/10), Adults 25-54 (4.6/12 versus 4.2/12) and households (6.4/11 versus 6.3/11), proving that perhaps viewers value The Amazing Race's Emmy-winning substance over Big Brother's sleazy voyeurism -- even if only over so slightly.
Compared to the premiere of The Amazing Race 4 in May of 2003, The Amazing Race 5 was up 32% in Adults 18-34 (from 3.1/11), 16% in Adults 18-49 (from 3.7/12), 5% in Adults 25-54 (from 4.4/13) and added 360,000 viewers (from 9.94 million.)
The debut represented the best performance for an episode of The Amazing Race in viewers, Adults 18-49 and Adults 25-54 since the finale of The Amazing Race 3 aired on December 18, 2002 and highest rated in adults 18-34 since the May 15, 2002 finale of The Amazing Race 2.
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The premiere outperformed CBS' previous 10-11PM ET/PT summer programming (repeats of Judging Amy) by 28% in households (from 5.0/08), 153% in Adults 18-49 (from 1.7/05), 273% in Adults 18-34 (from 1.1/03) and 109% in Adults 25-54 (from 2.2/05) while adding 3.7 million viewers (from 6.60 million).
Combined with the network's 8:00-9:30PM ET/PT broadcast of the premiere of Big Brother 5, the two CBS reality series took a bite out of the ratings performance of NBC's previously high-flying Last Comic Standing 2, defeating the series in viewers, households, and Adults 25-54, and tying the series in Adults 18-49.
Together the three hour block of reality programming premieres led CBS to an across-the-board victory in viewers, Adults 18-49, Adults 18-34 and Adults 25-54.