Best 10 Shows of 2006

show that received 3 votes or more from the list of 8 reviewers -
Time, TV Guide, People Weekly, Entertainment Weekly [2], Metacritic, LA
Times, Chicago Tribune - these are the 10 "unanimous" bests:

By Votes:

The Wire - 6 votes
Battlestar Galactica - 5 votes
Friday Night Lights - 5 votes
The Office - 5 votes
30 Rock - 4 votes
Dexter - 4 votes
Ugly Betty - 4 votes
24 - 3 votes
Bleak House - 3 votes
Heroes - 3 votes

Averaging Out the Rankings:

1. The Wire
2. 24 / Friday Night Lights [tie]
4. Battlestar Galactica
5. The Office
6. 30 Rock
7. Ugly Betty
8. Bleak House
9. Heroes
10. Dexter

Steven L....

Which proves once again that media critics' opinions of a show are a
poor predictor of its Nielsen ratings.

zaryzary2003...

Was this ever in dispute? Naturally there are plenty of shows that are
critical favorites that don't do well with the ratings. Likewise there
are lots of movies that get good reviews but don't do well in the box
office.

Why don't you put up a list of the Top 10 shows in the Nielsen ratings
this season, so we can see the difference.

David...

Well "24," "Ugly Betty" and "Heroes" are considered hits, "The Wire,"
"Dexter" and "Bleak House" are on networks with limited distribution
and/or don't get measured by Nielsen, "The Office" does okay and
"Battlestar" does comparatively well. So only 2 of the 11 shows can be
said to have poor ratings.

pkj0891...

A little bit o' ratings info (per USA Today):

The finale rating for "Dexter" was great (for SHO). It got 1.1
million viewers, "the biggest audience for a Showtime original series
episode since at least 2004".

The previous week, the finale of "The Wire" had 1.9 million viewers.
No comparative comment, other than it did much better than its lead-in
("Tsunami, the Aftermath" with 758,000 viewers).

Rob Jensen...

Ratings != quality.

-- Rob