Football gave Almost Human a strong start last night.
FOX: The network carefully set its preview of ALMOST HUMAN for a Sunday night where FOX had the late NFL game, and the result was a solid 3.1 for the pilot. Of course, tonight’s regular timeslot premiere will be a very different animal, but there’s this: on Oct. 7 (because of baseball, it’s been a while since football led into FOX’s regular Sunday schedule), a post-NFL Simpsons had a preliminary 2.9 rating, followed by 1.8 for Bob’s Burgers. Almost Human‘s half-hours of 3.4/2.8 were significantly stronger, especially the 8:30PM retention, which bodes fairly well for the first regular episode. After that, last night’s episodes of THE SIMPSONS and FAMILY GUY, both out of their regular timeslots, were at 1.8/2.2, with Simpsons lower than what Family Guy usually does at 9PM, but Family Guy naturally higher at 9:30PM than a typical American Dad.
ABC: Airing against a scripted drama rather than animation, ONCE UPON A TIME fell 0.2 to a new low 1.9, even as the show accelerated its storyline toward its midseason finale. REVENGE was up 0.2 to 1.5 and BETRAYAL rose 0.1 to 0.9, but neither will generate any momentum, because they’re preempted for at least the next 2 weeks thanks to the American Music Awards and a Hallmark Hall Of Fame movie.
CBS: 60 MINUTES didn’t have a football lead-in last night, so it was at 1.7, far from last week’s 3.1. THE AMAZING RACE was down 0.2 to 2.0, then THE GOOD WIFE lost momentum after 2 strong weeks, down 0.3 to 1.4. A very heavily-promoted episode of THE MENTALIST slipped 0.1 to 1.3.
NBC: Last night’s SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL, featuring a major confrontation between (previously) unbeaten Kansas City and Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos, was way up from last week with what we expect will be an adjusted 10.7 rating.
Tonight’s major ratings event will be the regular timeslot airing of Almost Human. FOX catches a bit of a break from NBC, which will have a clip episode of THE VOICE at 8PM leading into the night’s regular live episode at 9PM, preempting THE BLACKLIST for the week. ABC affiliates in both Boston and Charlotte will carry tonight’s MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL game, which may skew that network’s numbers.
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