The AMERICAN IDOL finale was loud for the night, but a whisper compared to bygone days.
DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary key advertiser demographics (adult 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 ratings), audience skews (women 18-49, men 18-49 and adults 50+ shares) and total viewership (thousands of people over the age of 2).
FOX: AMERICAN IDOL exited at 3.0, up 0.9 from last week, and tied (pending adjustment) for the highest-rated show of the night. That tied its season high (the season premiere) and was up 1.3 from last year’s finale, but still just a fraction of the show’s glory days.
CBS: It’s not clear why the network thought it would be a good idea to launch the season premiere of THE ODD COUPLE against the IDOL finale. The COUPLE lead-in, THE BIG BANG THEORY, while tied with IDOL at 3.0 as the highest-rated show of the night, was down half a point from last week, and that left COUPLE at 1.6, down almost half from last season’s 3.1 series premiere (which admittedly had a 4.5 BIG BANG lead-in), an unsteady way to begin the year’s run. MOM, airing for the first time since March 10, dropped 0.2 to 1.5, and 2 BROKE GIRLS was also down 0.2 to 1.4. RUSH HOUR fell 0.2 from last week’s underwhelming premiere to 0.9.
NBC: In another questionable move, the network sandwiched the first new episode of THE BLACKLIST since February 25 between 2 reruns (both at 0.8). BLACKLIST was down 0.1 to 1.2.
ABC: GREY’S ANATOMY was down 0.1 to 2.1, SCANDAL held at 1.7, and THE CATCH gained 0.1 to 1.1.
CW: LEGENDS OF TOMORROW was steady at 0.7, and THE 100 climbed 0.1 to 0.5.
Fans of SLEEPY HOLLOW will hope that tonight’s finale is merely for the season.
COMPARISONS TO SIMILAR NIGHTS: Preliminary adult 18-49 ratings versus the same night last year and same night last week.
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