SKINs premiered to 3.26 MILLION total viewers last night on MTV

via press release:

MTV’s “SKINS” DEBUTS WITH A 3.4 RATING (P12-34) AND 3.26 MILLION TOTAL VIEWERS

NEWEST SCRIPTED SERIES DRAWS NETWORK’S LARGEST P12-34 AUDIENCE FOR A SERIES LAUNCH

“SKINS” GARNERS HIGHER RATING THAN DEBUTS OF COMPETITIVE SCRIPTED SHOWS ACROSS CABLE AND NETWORK TELEVISION

NEW YORK, NY (January 18, 2011) – MTV, a division of Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B), announced today that its ground-breaking series “Skins” debuted with a 3.4 P12-34 rating and drew the most P12-34 viewers for a show launch in the network’s history.  MTV’s newest scripted series drew 3.26 million total viewers and 2.7 million viewers in its core demo.  The show premiered at 10pm on Monday, January 17.

“Skins” bowed to a higher P12-34 rating than the launches of competitive scripted shows across both cable and network television, including ABC Family’s “Pretty Little Liars” (2.2 rating – 6/8/10) and “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” (2.3 rating – 07/01/08), as well as CW’s “Gossip Girl” (2.3 rating — 09/17/07), “90210” (2.7 rating – 9/2/08) and “Vampire Diaries” (2.4 rating – 09/1/09).

The series is a key priority in MTV’s ongoing scripted programming push that started with last year’s coming-of-age comedy “The Hard Times of RJ Berger,” returning this Spring, and will continue with the Summer premiere of “Teen Wolf.”

Online, the premiere of “Skins” was Twitter’s #2 worldwide trending topic and #3 in the U.S. (#mtvskins).  The series attracted over 50,000 Facebook fans prior to the series premiere on-air, growing by 230% in the week leading up to its debut.

MTV closed out 2010 with 15% ratings growth among the network’s targeted P12-34 audience, making it the largest year-over-year increase since 1999.

Source:  The Nielsen Company.  Live+SD cvg rtgs.  Comparison among series debuts in regularly scheduled time periods only.