Full Week of Nickelodeon's New 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' Episodes Reach 19 Million Total Viewers

Nickelodeon's 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' Hits All-Time Series High

NEW YORK, July 22, 2008 -- Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender ended its third season with a "b-Aang," scoring the series' highest ratings ever, and earning the number-one spot on broadcast and basic cable television for the week with kids and tweens.

The two-hour season-three finale, Sozin's Comet (Sat., July 19, 8 p.m. ET/PT), wrapped up a week of new, half-hour Avatar episodes (Mon-Tues., Thurs.-Fri., 8 p.m. ET/PT), including a one-hour TV movie mid-week, Avatar: Boiling Rock (Wed. July 16, 8 p.m. ET/PT).

Ratings highlights for Nick's Avatar week include:

-- The season-three finale, Avatar: Sozin's Comet, was the number-one telecast on broadcast and basic cable television for the week of 7/14/08-7/22/08, averaging 5.6 million total viewers, up +195% over last year's like time period.*

-- Sozin's Comet earned the highest Avatar ratings ever with kids 6-11 and tweens, and triple-digit increases in all kid and tween demos. It averaged an 8.9/1.9 million K6-11 (up +123% over last year's same time period), and a 9.2/2.0 million T9-14 (up +229%).

-- All of the week's new Avatar episodes, including the Saturday finale, reached 19.0 million total viewers combined.**

-- The Wed., July 16, episode, Avatar: Boiling Rock (8 p.m. ET/PT), drew 4.0 million total viewers and averaged a 6.9/1.4 million K6-11 (up +86% over last year), and a 7.1/1.5 million viewers T9-14 (up +122%).

-- On average, the week-long Avatar premieres earned a 7.6/1.7 million T9-14 (up +130% over the same week in 2007); a 7.3/1.5 million K6-11 (up +83%); and 4.6 million total viewers.*

-- The new Avatar online Game of the Week on nick.com, "Rise of the Phoenix King", generated almost 815,000 game plays (7/17-7/20/08) and in just three days, became the number-two online game for the week.****

-- During the week of premiere episodes, Avatar became the number-one message board on Nick.com.

In Sozin's Comet, Aang faces an epic battle against the Firelord, coming to terms with his destiny. Launched in February 2005, the epic story of Avatar: The Last Airbender follows the journey of Aang, a boy torn between fulfilling his fate as the long-awaited Avatar and just wanting to be a regular kid.

The animated series has inspired the 2010 live-action epic adventure, M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender", from Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies. Avatar television series creators, Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, will serve as executive producers.

Nickelodeon, now in its 29th year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The company includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, online, recreation, books, magazines and feature films. Nickelodeon's U.S. television network is seen in more than 96 million households and has been the number-one-rated basic cable network for 14 consecutive years. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B).

Sources:* NMR, 7/19/08 and 7/14-7/22/08; ** NMR NPower, P2+ reach, 7/14-7/20/08; *** NMR, 7/16/08; and **** Omniture SiteCatalyst, 7/14-7/20/08)

SOURCE Nickelodeon

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