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Turkey Day Parade Was on Viewers' Plates

By Lisa de Moraes
Saturday, December 2, 2006; C07

An average of about 21 million people spent Thanksgiving morning watching helium-filled Snoopy, Pikachu, Big Bird, SpongeBob SquarePants and a helium-less Barry Manilow lumber down Manhattan's Central Park West on NBC. It was last week's second-most-watched program in the country, behind only Sunday's "Desperate Housewives" on ABC.

The 80th annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade broadcast outdistanced 89 of 90 prime-time telecasts last week.

To put this in perspective, the four-hour, holiday kitschfest Thursday clocked about 4 million more viewers than the most recent Grammy Awards broadcast, 5 million more than the most recent Primetime Emmy Awards broadcast and nearly twice as many viewers as that other Christmas season orgy of commercialism, "The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show," snared in its first and best year on broadcast TV.

* * *

When NBC announced yesterday it had given Tina Fey's new comedy, "30 Rock," a full-season order, early stats suggested the previous night's broadcast had snagged the show's best number ever among the young viewers the network targets, despite the stiff "Grey's Anatomy" and "CSI" competition.

Overall, the episode averaged 6.6 million viewers, early stats indicated.

Then the final numbers came in and the overall audience dropped to 6 million and young-adult numbers also plopped. Still, NBC noted, putting on its bright smile, "30 Rock" copped the show's second- best performance against that aforementioned stiff competition.

NBC now has ordered full seasons of both of its prime-time "SNL"-esque series and is so in love with the franchise these days it's even threatening to run "SNL" Friday rehearsals on the Internet.

"Sometimes it's a lot more interesting than the show," NBC Universal chief digital officer George Kliavkoff cracked when he mentioned the idea being bandied about by NBC suits at this week's Digital Entertainment Media & Marketing Excellence conference, according to trade paper the Hollywood Reporter.

"It's something we watch on the cameras at 30 Rock."

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