Business

NJ is still TV gold

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New Jersey, the butt of many a joke, yesterday solidified itself again as TV ratings gold.

The Style Network reported that the final episode of season two of “Jerseylicious,” which follows a crew of stylists in and out of their Green Brook, NJ, salon, was its highest-rated telecast ever.

The show has doubled its viewership since season one and nabbed 925,000 viewers for the season two finale.

The Comcast-owned channel, now housed under its NBCUniversal banner, will feature the series as part of counter-programming on Super Bowl Sunday.

Down the dial, “Jersey Shore,” of course, is pulling in record ratings for MTV — 8.2 million to 8.9 million viewers for each of the current season’s first four shows. In fact, the number of viewers are on par with broadcast network dramas such as ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Meanwhile, Discovery Communications-owned TLC has its own hit Jersey show, “Cake Boss,” featuring Hoboken bakery owner Buddy Valastro.

The show’s popularity has spawned a spin-off called “The Next Great Baker.” The highest-rated episode of the show garnered some 2.5 million viewers in its first season. The season four premiere of “Cake Boss” drew 2.4 million viewers on Jan. 31.

Robert Seidman, founder of TV ratings blog, TVByTheNumbers, doesn’t think the shows’ popularity is tied to their Italian character. “I think it has more to do with a new genre that ‘Jersey Shore’ has created,” he said.

” ‘Jerseylicious’ is a fabulous success but compared to ‘Jersey Shore,’ it is nothing,” Seidman noted. ” ‘Jersey Shore’ is a beast.”

Of course, not every cable show featuring New Jersey is a smash hit. NBCU’s Oxygen channel bowed “Jersey Couture,” about an upscale dress salon, last spring. A spokeswoman explained it wasn’t the highest- or the lowest-rated show on the network, but was still under consideration for a second season.