VMA RATINGS THROUGH THE ROOF

MTV’s historically mad skills at assembling top-notch talent and generating wall-to-wall visibility were in full force this year, as the 2008 Video Music Awards delivered dramatically higher ratings over the last two editions of the annual rite of fall. Here are the numbers racked up by the premiere of the telecast on MTV and MTV2, as well as the VMA-driven traffic on MTV.com.

MTV & MTV2
* According to Cable Fast national data, the premiere airing of the VMAs averaged an 8.1 P12-34 grossed rating on MTV and MTV2, growing 26% from last year and 37% from two years ago.
* On MTV only, the show averaged a 7.4 P12-34 rating, representing a 15% increase over last year’s VMAs and up 41% from the 2006 awards.
* The VMA premiere on MTV is the highest-rated telecast on cable year-to-date among P12-34.
* During the VMA premiere time period, MTV and MTV2 reached over 23 million viewers P2+ with more than 13 million from our P12-34 core demo.
* The VMA pre-show averaged a 4.1 P12-34 rating, a 32% increase versus last year’s pre-VMA show.

MTV.COM
* MTV.com logged 2.3 million unique visitors on Sunday, a 170% increase over last Sunday (8/31/08).
* Of the 2.3 million uniques to MTV.com on Sunday, 1.3 million unique visitors viewed VMA content, including show pages, flipbooks, video content and news related to the show.
* MTV.com produced nearly 16.6 million page views, a week-to-week increase of 259%, and a 18% increase compared to last year’s day of show (9/9/07).
* VMA content had over 10 million page views, a 110% increase from last year’s show.
Users generated 3.4 million streams, up 81% compared to the previous Sunday.
* The Buzzworthy Blog earned 161k unique visitors and delivered 245k page views on Sunday.