Now in its second year of C3--commercial ratings plus three days of DVR playback, the metric TV advertisers buy for all national TV programming--comedies such as "Two and a Half Men," "Family Guy," "Seinfeld," "George Lopez," "King of the Hill" and "That '70s Show" had higher ratings among 18-49 viewers than in 2007.

Warner Bros.' "Two and a Half Men" continues to be a strong story for the syndication business. Looking at the fourth quarter of 2008, Interpublic's Magna Group study found that "Men" was up to a 3.3 rating among 18-49 in C3 for the fourth quarter of 2008 versus a 2.9 the year before--a 14% improvement. "Men" also registered the highest 18-49 C3 rating among all syndication shows.

Twentieth Television's "Family Guy," another strong performer, was in second place with a 3.2 rating--the same number as a year ago. Sony Pictures Television's veteran "Seinfeld" was in third place with a 2.6 rating versus a 2.5 a year ago--a 4% gain. Warner Bros.' "George Lopez" grew 19% to a 1.9 rating. Twentieth's "King of the Hill" grew 6% to a 1.8 number, and its "That '70s Show" was 20% better than 2007 with a 1.2 rating.

The most improved non-comedy program was Warner Bros.' tabloid magazine show "TMZ," which moved up 18% to a 1.8 rating.

Syndication executives continue to tout their shorter national commercial pods, as opposed to cable or broadcast, as a reason for their strong results in the commercial rating metric.

Overall, Magna notes in comparing C3 to live program averages, 53% of shows have indices of 100 or higher. This compares to a 91 average index for the five broadcast networks in prime time. In terms of actual commercial retention on live plus three days of DVR playback, nearly 60% of all syndicated programs have a commercial index of 97 or higher. Both of these network and syndication indices are down from last season.

Comedies continued to dominate the U.S. syndication landscape, comprising the most minutes and gross ratings points at 27.1%. In a close second place were syndication talk shows at 24.8%. Other genres drop off substantially from there: Court programs were at a 12.9% share; entertainment and news magazine shows at 9.7%; off-network dramas, 8.4%; game shows at 5.6%; feature films at 3.5%; and reality TV at 2.5%.

While some syndication comedies showed improvement, many others--as well as first-run shows--went south when it came to 18-49 viewers in C3.

Sony's "King of Queens," the fourth-highest-rated show, earned 2.3 numbers, down 8%; CBS Television Distribution's "Everybody Loves Raymond," in fifth place, dropped to a 2.2 rating, off 27%; Warner Bros.' "Friends" earned a 2.0, down 9%, and CBS' "Judge Judy" lost 13%, earning a 2.1 number, with "Wheel of Fortune" giving up 6% to earn a 1.7 number. "Oprah Winfrey" dropped 15% lower to a 1.7. CBS' "Entertainment Tonight" fell 21% to a 1.5 rating.

On the flip side, NBC Universal's off-network drama "Law & Order: SVU" had its C3 numbers among 18-49 viewers grow to a 1.6 from a 1.2 the year before.

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