USA Rockin' with Royal Pains, Burn Notice, and More

In a press release issued yesterday from USA Networks, the cable channel boasted about its current success in ratings across all major demographics, and I must say, its quite an impressive list of accomplishments.  In fact, cablers like USA and TNT's success with original scripted television shows makes one wonder when Nielsen will update their ratings system and provide an across the board ranking, without discriminating between broadcast network and cable networks?  Having the breakouts is certainly nice, but having an all inclusive ratings list would also be nice!  Check out USA's success in the bullets below.

• Royal Pains builds ratings in its second week, an unprecedented first for the network, giving Royal Pains the #1 spot on the net last week with 5.59 million total viewers, and giving it the number 1 spot in all key demos (Burn Notice came in second on the network).
• Royal Pains and Burn Notice together pulled in more P18-49 than any new scripted broadcast show this week.
• USA continues to out-deliver The CW, doubling the broadcaster's P18-49 (+144%), P25-54 (+164%), P18-34 (+91%) and total viewer (+168%) audiences.
• USA registered victories over "Big 4″ broadcasters in 15 hours this week, thanks to original series Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and In Plain Sight, WWE Monday Night Raw, and episodes of NCIS and House, the most popular acquired series on cable.
• In addition to outperforming every program on CBS among P18-49 Sunday night, In Plain Sight doubled the audience of timeperiod competitor Army Wives on Lifetime among M25-54 (848,000, +130%) and total male viewers (1.68 million, +109%), as well as enjoying a considerable advantage among M18-49 (668,000, +84%).

USA is certainly making the case for an overall ratings group, and TNT isn't hurting the chances either, especially with the fantastic newcomer, Dark Blue, staring Dylan McDermott, which premieres in July.