What Does It Mean When...

...NBC had the 6 trillionth airing of It's a Wonderful Life on Xmas
night and it still managed to beat repeat episodes of ABC's Desperate
Housewives and Brothers & Sisters? Just looking at the final Nielsens

Steven L....

I think it means that during Christmas Eve-Christmas Day, viewers tend
to prefer family shows because they're often celebrating Christmas with
their entire families.

If you have an extended family with lots of small children, you're not
going to watch Desperate Housewives together.

for that night and Life averaged 2.8 in the 9 pm hour and 3.6 in the 10
pm hour, while Wives came in with a 2.3 and B&S a 2.1. Only Extreme
Makeover: HE beat the film in the 8 pm hour, 2.5 to 2.3. Even FOX's
28th airing of Spiderman beat Wives with its identical 2.8 to that of
Life. Anyway, looks like a classic showdown between a movie with a

Steven L....

Again, because Spider-Man is a family movie.

I guess ABC should have aired more family fare too.

closed-ended story [a.k.a. episodic, so to speak] and two shows with
open-ended stories [a.k.a. soaps], and the episodic-natured one wins
once more. ABC would've done better if it instead ran The 10
Commandments again.