Weekly Nielsen Ratings: 1977-78 TV Season (UPDATED)

Below are the full weekly primetime Nielsen ratings results for the 1977-78 television season. Data comes from the Nielsen pocketpieces which were very graciously transcribed by an anonymous contributor. There are tabs available for each of the season's 52 weeks with the Household rating, share, and impressions available for nearly every primetime program. There are 9 incomplete weeks of the season where I am missing the associated pocketpiece, so the data provided comes from a variety of sources including Newspaper lists, and trade publication articles. In those weeks, usually more half of the ratings data is available. Full rankings are available for each week except for July 2, 1978 and September 3, 1978 in which only the top 20 rankings are known.

This article previously only consisted of Newspaper scans to tell the story of this season's ratings, and those scans are still provided at the bottom of this article in case people want to see them. In some cases, the data in the Newspapers will slightly differ from the ratings in the pocketpiece  because the newspaper data is based off of Fast National data while the pocketpieces are from finalized data. The pocketpiece data should be considered more accurate and the raw scans of them are all available under the "Pocketpiece" tab.

Nielsen Pocketpiece Housekeeping

It came to my attention that several of the Nielsen Pocketpieces I initially scanned and posted were missing pages. I recently went back to DC to scan all of the missing pages and I've updated all of the associated posts with the new pages now included. Below is an index of all the Pocketpieces in question and the new pages that have been added.

Nielsen Fast Weekly Household Report: August 25 - 31, 1980

Below is a Nielsen Fast Weekly Household Report (FWH) covering the the week between the 2nd August 1980 and 1st September 1980 Pocketpiece. Nielsen's Pocketpiece reports only covered 48 weeks out of the year, so there are 4 weeks in which only the FWH report was released. They include an alphabetical list of most programs that aired and and their HH rating information.

Nielsen Pocketpiece: August 1980 - 2nd Report

Below is a full Nielsen pocketpiece covering the 2nd half of August 1980. It features the complete Nielsen ratings for all television programs airing in the weeks ending August 17, 1980 and August 24, 1980. The first half of the report includes a full alphabetical list of all programs that aired and their two-week average HH rating/impression. The second half of the report provides HH ratings information for individual telecasts each day.

Nielsen Pocketpiece: August 1980 - 1st Report

Below is a full Nielsen pocketpiece covering the 1st half of August 1980. It features the complete Nielsen ratings for all television programs airing in the weeks ending August 3, 1980 and August 10, 1980. The first half of the report includes a full alphabetical list of all programs that aired and their two-week average HH rating/impression. The second half of the report provides HH ratings information for individual telecasts each day.

Nielsen Pocketpiece: July 1952 - 2nd Report

Below is a full Nielsen pocketpiece covering the 2nd half of July 1952. It features the complete Nielsen ratings for all television programs airing in the 2 weeks ending July 26, 1952. Unfortunately, the only records I've been able to find of Pocketpieces from prior to November 1954 exist on Microfilm, so the quality of the scans is not as good as in the later years. This was the best quality, highest-resolution quality scan I was able to get, so anything that is not legible here was also not legible through the microfilm reader. 

Nielsen Pocketpiece: July 1980 - 2nd Report

Below is a full Nielsen pocketpiece covering the 2nd half of July 1980. It features the complete Nielsen ratings for all television programs airing in the weeks ending July 20, 1980 and July 27, 1980. The first half of the report includes a full alphabetical list of all programs that aired and their two-week average HH rating/impression. The second half of the report provides HH ratings information for individual telecasts each day.

Nielsen Pocketpiece: July 1980 - 1st Report

Below is a full Nielsen pocketpiece covering the 1st half of July 1980. It features the complete Nielsen ratings for all television programs airing in the weeks ending July 6, 1980 and July 13, 1980. The first half of the report includes a full alphabetical list of all programs that aired and their two-week average HH rating/impression. The second half of the report provides HH ratings information for individual telecasts each day.

Nielsen Fast Weekly Household Report: June 23 - 29, 1980

Below is a Nielsen Fast Weekly Household Report (FWH) covering the the week between the 2nd June 1980 and 1st July 1980 Pocketpiece. Nielsen's Pocketpiece reports only covered 48 weeks out of the year, so there are 4 weeks in which only the FWH report was released. They include an alphabetical list of most programs that aired and and their HH rating information.

Nielsen Pocketpiece: April 1952 - 2nd Report

Below is a full Nielsen pocketpiece covering the 2nd half of April 1952. It features the complete Nielsen ratings for all television programs airing in the 2 weeks ending April 26, 1952. Unfortunately, the only records I've been able to find of Pocketpieces from prior to November 1954 exist on Microfilm, so the quality of the scans is not as good as in the later years. This was the best quality, highest-resolution quality scan I was able to get, so anything that is not legible here was also not legible through the microfilm reader.