According to Zap2It, the biggest surprise of this year’s Thanksgiving was that football was high in the ratings, leaving behind Lady Gaga and The Muppets’ special episode and Glee‘s “puppet” episode.
NBC’s prime-time NFL took the prize of the highest ratings by far, while CBS’s afternoon of football also reflected positively in the beginning of its nightly schedule for Thursday.
Everything else came lower than expected, especially against the NFL broadcast.
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on ABC rated between its last two transmissions: it was higher than last Thanksgiving’s, but lower than New Year’s Eve’s.
Lady Gaga and the Muppets’ Holiday Spectacular on ABC faired 25% lower than last year’s broadcast at the same time, which was the Michael Jackson special Bad 25. It also faired way lower than the last Lady Gaga & The Muppets collaboration, back on Thanksgiving 2011.
Fresh episodes of X Factor and Glee also rated way lower than expected. Both shows hit series lows, but neither will affect the final ratings, since those episodes were labeled as “Thanksgiving specials”.
Glee continues to prove that its current Thursday time-slot is definitely not a safe option for the show.
NBC’s ratings more than doubled the second placed network’s ratings, CBS.