Farrah's Story Scores NBC a Major Ratings Blockbuster

According to NBC's press release, more than 8.9 million viewers watched “Farrah’s Story” last night from 9 - 11 PM local time on NBC. Quite a personal story, it used footage from her own video camera, and much of the narration was her own voice. It was painful to watch, though the courage was simply amazing.

It was interesting to watch the tragedy of her impending death bringing her back together with her fellow "Charlie's Angels" stars, Jacklyn Smith and Kate Jackson. It was also heartening to see the response, as shown during the documentary, of other cancer patients around the country who wrote her of their own struggles.

Here are the ratings details from NBC's press release:

The NBC News special “Farrah’s Story” delivered NBC’s highest adult 18-49 and total-viewer results in the time period, excluding Olympics, in more than a year, according to preliminary “live plus same day” fast affiliate-based ratings from Nielsen Media Research. The last time NBC topped last night’s results for “Farrah’s Story” 2.4 rating, 8 share in adults 18-49, 8.9 million viewers overall) in the Friday 9-11 p.m. time slot was March 28, 2008 with a “Dateline NBC” telecast about a case of mistaken identity for the survivor of a car crash. The 2.4 is also the highest 18-49 rating for any network in the time period with non-sports programming since February 13, 2009.

From its first half-hour to its fourth, “Farrah’s Story” increased its 18-49 rating by 35% (to a 2.7/9 from a 2.0/8) and its overall viewership by 17% or 1.4 million persons (to 9.6 million from 8.2 million). Versus NBC’s time period average over the prior four weeks, “Farrah’s Story” is up 60% in adults 18-49 (2.4 vs. 1.5) and 56% in total viewers (8.938 million vs. 5.712 million).