The two-hour Jan. 14 premiere of SCI FI Channel's original series Battlestar Galactica was the number-one cable program on that date in key demographics and ranked as the highest-rated January show in the network's history. Galactica ranked first among adults aged 25-54 and 18-49 and men aged 25-54, 18-49 and 18-34. The show earned a 2.6 household rating (3.1 million viewers), ranking second among all cable programs.

Galactica was also SCI FI's highest-rated first-quarter series telecast ever and its second highest-rated series telecast ever, behind only Stargate Atlantis' series premiere in summer 2004.

Galactica delivered 2.2 million viewers aged 25-54 and 1.9 million among those aged 18-49. The show won a decisive victory over UPN's Star Trek: Enterprise, outperforming its new episode in total viewers, among adults 25-54 (2.2 million vs. 1.7 million) and 18-49 (1.9 million vs. 1.5 million). Among men 25-54, Galactica delivered 1.5 million viewers, beating 16 of the top 20 programs on the six broadcast networks, including CSI: Miami, JAG and Fox's premiere of Jonny Zero.

Battlestar Galactica moves to its regular timeslot on Jan. 21, joining SCI FI's Friday-night lineup of original programming, "SCI FI Fridays." Galactica will air Fridays at 10 p.m. ET/PT, following Stargate SG-1 at 8p.m. and Stargate Atlantis at 9 p.m.

Pfft Enterprise ;)

What would I watch? Something created by Ronald D. Moore or something created by the gruesome twosome. :ermm: :whistling:

Excellent news :thumbsup:

Great stuff! If those ratings continue, then there should be no worries about us getting a season 2.

After the wonderful part one of 'Kobol's Last Gleaming' on Monday, and not having seen part two yet, I'm already eager to see season 2.

Take care,

Andrew :upside:

Similar numbers for the next episode aired will almost certainly yield a swift renewal. They've already stated that they'll be making a decision based on the scores from the early episodes. Once they see that this performance wasn't a one-off I think they'll be quite hasty.

Great news :thumbsup:

Got to admit, the american TV system totally baffles me. 3.1 million is a good rating? Eastenders gets four times that in a smaller country, and its supposed to be in trouble.

not everybody has cable so you're bound to expect lower viewing figures although I'm surprised only 3 million viewers in the whole of the US :o

How many viewers did Sky get?

If you look at network ratings then it's even more disproportionate.

CSI gets about 20 million viewers and that's the top-rated show over there. Eastenders used to get that hadn't it ??

I'm not quite sure how that one works myself.

Glad its not just me. I though most homes had cable in the US, although I don't know what I base that on.

Still, I suppose if Sci-Fi is happy, then I am.

Perhaps our rating system is based on a lie! I personally find it hard to believe that so many people actually watch EastEnders

Sadly, I believe it. There are just too many morons on this planet.

Time for me to bang on about the old chestnut of streaming TV over the internet. It's a lot better and accurate measuring tool.

Shows like Firefly, Angel and the rest would likely not be cancelled then. Just look at Family Guy; cancelled due to poor ratings, but became one of the biggest DVD sellers of the year when it was released.

Currently Eastenders pulls just over 10m, less than half of it's glory years with Den and Angie.

Last I looked BSG pulled in 600-700k putting it in cable top ten but those figures tend to be about a month old.

Based against comparative audience potential though, BSG scores about 3 million viewers in the States, whereas CSI brings in about 20 million. That would tend to suggest that the population in the States is only twice that of our own :lol: