The War of 18-49, Hell's Kitchen

HELL'S KITCHEN (FOX)

Scheduling history: Utility player Hell's Kitchen is the rare entertainment show to air on four different nights of the week and in all twelve months of the year. After two summers as a Monday/Tuesday show, Fox brought it back into the regular season in spring 2013, then aired the second half of the season on Thursday in the early summer. It had a similar arrangement in spring 2014, and quickly turned around as a Wednesday show on the fall 2014 schedule. It was back on Tuesday in summer 2015, then split time between Wednesday/Friday in 2016 and Thursday/Friday in 2017. The 2017-18 season was the first to air completely on Friday.

See (who saw) how it all began: Hell's Kitchen kicked off in the opening days of summer 2005, pulling a decent 6.80 million viewers and a 3.2/8 adults 18-49 rating on 5/30/05. But that'd actually end up being one of the lower-rated episodes of season one. It rose to a 3.5 demo in week two, then a 3.8 in week three. It came back down to into the low 3's for most of the rest of season one but spike big to a 4.4 in the season one finale.

The best of times: Time to sing the old refrain for Fox shows: Hell's Kitchen was at its best when it got to air after American Idol! It only got that honor in its fourth season, when it got moved to the regular season for the first time in part due to the dearth of programming because of the WGA strike. The show opened season four with 11.85 million viewers and a series-high 5.5/13 in the demo and usually broke a 5.0 in its post-Idol eps. In the back half of that season after Idol wrapped up, the show typically pulled around a 4.0 demo or a little over.

The worst of times: Since peaking with the partly post-Idol fourth season, each season of Hell's Kitchen has dropped from the previous one. After taking the 2009-10 season off from regular season action, it returned in fall 2010 to its worst numbers yet. On Thanksgiving Eve 2010, the show hit its lowest numbers yet, pulling then-series lows with 5.09 million viewers and a 2.2 demo. It finally went below a 2.0 for the first time in 2013 against regular season competition, and it has really plummeted the last couple years. Since hitting its first 0.8's in the 2016 season, it fell to 0.7 just once (on 12/1/17) in the next two seasons, before getting there several times in season 18.

Then vs. now: For its first three years, it looked like Fox was successfully developing Hell's Kitchen into the #1 powerhouse of the summer. Since then, it's developed into something entirely different: a true utility player. Unlike certain other summer franchises we've looked at, this one hasn't completely imploded when put in the regular season. It's premiered in six different months and aired at least once in all twelve months of the year. Though the ratings have been declining over the last few years, it remains clear Fox can put this show just about anywhere at just about any time of year and do good business. As the network's struggles has intensified in recent years, that's really been put to the test. In 2012-13 season, it plugged up a tough Tuesday slot where their comedies had failed. Fox ordered considerably more new shows for 2013-14, but the quick failure of Rake called Hell's Kitchen back into the regular season. And in 2014-15, it aired two cycles significantly within a single regular season for the first time. That finally started to take a noticeable toll in recent seasons, but season 16 saw a bounce back to 2014 levels.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Summer 2005	Monday 9:00	3.42		2.9	4.4	detail
2	Summer 2006		Monday 9:00	3.57	+5%	2.8	4.5		detail
3	Summer 2007		Monday 9:00	3.97	+11%	3.5	4.5		detail
4	2008	Tuesday 9:00	4.65	+17%	3.6	5.5	detail
5	2009	Thursday 9:00	3.55		2.7	4.8	detail
6	Summer 2009	Tuesday 8:00	3.39	-27%	2.8	3.8	detail
7	Summer 2010	Tuesday 8:00/9:00	2.97	-12%	2.5	3.3	detail
8	Fall 2010	Wednesday 8:00/9:00	2.77		2.2	3.4	detail
9	Summer 2011	Monday 9:00	2.64	-11%	2.4	2.9	detail	B-
		9	Summer 2011	Tuesday 8:00	2.65				2.5	2.8	detail	B-
10	Summer 2012	Mon 8:00, Mon 9:00	2.57	-3%	2.4	2.9	detail	B
		10	Summer 2012	Tuesday 8:00	2.31	-13%			2.0	2.6	detail	B
11	2013	Tue 8:00, Thu 8:00	2.05	-21%	1.7	2.3	detail	C+
12	2014	Thursday 8:00	1.66	-19%	1.3	2.0	detail	C-
13	Fall 2014	Wednesday 8:00	1.34		1.1	1.5	detail	D+
14	Spring 2015	Tue 8:00, Tue 9:00	1.23	-26%	1.1	1.4	detail	D+
15	Winter 2016	Friday 9:00	1.13	-8%	0.8	1.5	detail	B-
16	2016-17	Fri 8:00, Thu 8:00	1.08	-4%	1.0	1.3	detail	B+
17	2017-18	Friday 8:00	0.87	-20%	0.7	1.1	detail	C+
18	2018-19	Friday 9:00	0.78	-10%	0.7	0.9	detail	B-
19	Winter 2021	Thursday 8:00	0.74		0.6	0.8	detail	A-
20	Summer 2021	Monday 8:00	0.61		0.5	0.7	detail
21	2022-23	Thursday 8:00	0.40		0.4	0.5	detail	B-

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now23	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Summer 2005	84	solid(sum)	0.36		71	108	79	108
2	Summer 2006	88	solid(sum)	0.38	+5%	69	111	69	111
3	Summer 2007	105	big hit(sum)	0.45	+20%	93	119	98	119
4	2008	141	hit	0.60	+33%	109	166	166	127
5	2009	118	solid	0.50		90	160	160	106
6	Summer 2009	113	big hit(sum)	0.48	-20%	93	126	93	126
7	Summer 2010	106	big hit(sum)	0.45	-6%	89	117	103	117
8	Fall 2010	109	solid	0.47		87	134	102	102
9	Summer 2011	104	hit(sum)	0.44	-2%	94	114	98	102
		9	Summer 2011	104	hit(sum)	0.44		98	110	98	110
10	Summer 2012	109	big hit(sum)	0.46	+5%	102	123	102	106
		10	Summer 2012	98	hit(sum)	0.42	-6%	85	110	89	110
11	2013	97	marginal	0.41	-11%	81	109	100	109
12	2014	88	marginal	0.38	-9%	69	106	106	90
13	Fall 2014	80	marginal	0.34		65	89	89	77
14	Spring 2015	73	marginal	0.31	-18%	65	83	83	65
15	Winter 2016	77	marginal	0.33	+6%	54	102	78	66
16	2016-17	89	hit(Fri)	0.38	+15%	78	105	87	91
17	2017-18	79	hit(Fri)	0.34	-11%	65	100	80	85
18	2018-19	82	hit(Fri)	0.35	+4%	73	95	95	82
19	Winter 2021	115	solid	0.49		98	132	118	132
20	Summer 2021	94	hit(sum)	0.40		74	109	95	79
21	2022-23	94	marginal	0.40		82	108	91	91

The War of 18-49 chronicles the ratings history of veteran primetime series. For more, see the Index.