In the end, it wasn’t all that close.
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).
Ratings analysis and comparisons follow the chart. (Charts corrected with correct CBS 9:30 pm program.)
NBC: There will be plenty of spin surrounding the 2.3 for last night’s THE BLACKLIST. That’s far from a bad number these days, and inevitably, the drama did much better than the dud sitcoms it replaced. NBC will also get the benefits of Thursday premium pricing from advertisers (notably movie studios) who want pre-weekend eyeballs. But that 2.3 wasn’t just 0.8 below SCANDAL, giving it no serious competition–it was also 0.2 below the show’s last Monday airing. And considering the massive hype that accompanied this move, further declines can be expected over the next several weeks. (It didn’t help that the episode itself was far from the “game-changer” the network had loudly promised.) BLACKLIST had a much older audience than SCANDAL, and although its audience was more male, it wasn’t nearly as dominant with men as SCANDAL was with women. Even worse, BLACKLIST did absolutely nothing to launch ALLEGIANCE, which debuted at a tepid 1.1 that put it behind ELEMENTARY, let alone HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER. The network’s questionable decision to start the night with a rerun of the Sunday BLACKLIST episode–which had already been watched by more people than had ever seen the show before–went badly at 1.0.
ABC: The line-up was due to take a hit off its huge midseason premiere numbers last week and it did, although given the weakness of NBC’s shows at 8PM and 10PM, it doesn’t seem like much of that was due to the new competition. GREY’S ANATOMY fell 0.6 to 0.2, SCANDAL was down half a point to 3.1, and HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER lost 0.4 to 2.7.
CBS: THE BIG BANG THEORY, despite all the buzz about the dueling dramas, easily remained the night’s highest-rated show, steady at 4.5. MOM and 2 1/2 MEN were also stable at 2.8 and 2.3. The BIG BANG rerun that CBS slotted instead of the originally-scheduled THE MCCARTHYS was at 1.9, 0.3 higher than last week’s fresh sitcom. ELEMENTARY rose 0.2 to 1.5.
FOX: AMERICAN IDOL gained 0.2 from last Thursday to 2.4, but BACKSTROM was clobbered by the arrival of THE BLACKLIST, down 0.4 to a critical-list 1.0.
CW: THE VAMPIRE DIARIES added 0.1 to 0.8, and REIGN stayed at 0.4.
There’s no drama on tonight’s schedule comparable to last night’s, just fresh episodes of all the network series.
COMPARISONS TO SIMILAR NIGHTS: Preliminary adult 18-49 ratings versus the same night last year and same night last week.
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