Sopranos nearly sets record

What record could that be? Worst series finale in history? debatable, but not the one I'm speaking of, nor did I even give this a thought when I saw the ratings numbers come in this morning.

The 11.9 million viewers who watched "The Sopranos" finale brought HBO to the edge of a historic feat: a show on a pay cable network available in about 30 million homes was more popular last week than all but one show on the far larger world of broadcast television.

That 'far larger world of broadcast' accounts for something like 110 million homes, which is huge. Nearly one out of every three people with HBO watched this finale (and nearly one out of every three people with HBO are now really pissed.) 11.9 million is creeping into network territory, where I think NBC's Heroes as an example floated between 9-13 million viewers over the course of its first season.

But that's not the real milestone.

Only the premiere of NBC's "America's Got Talent," with 13 million viewers, did better, Nielsen Media Research said.

That is. It booted every show on network television last week except one junk reality show, which is amazing. Not as amazing as it would have been had we not seen the end of all the big network dramas like House and Lost, but still very impressive.

Will this open peoples eyes to pay cable as a new outlet that can actually compete with the broadcast networks on the low end? Probably not. I doubt The Sopranos ever had numbers like that during its run and even 11.9 will get you canceled on some of the big 4. It's still quite an achievement.

Topics: Television, HBO, The Sopranos, Ratings