The War of 18-49, Blindspot

Season One After The Voice

After using its Monday The Voice lead-in on the same show (The Blacklist) for two consecutive falls, NBC led off the season with something new again in fall 2015. And on its 9/21/2015 premiere night, Blindspot's 3.1 demo after a 3.5 Voice was every bit as impressive as the Blacklist premiere (3.8 after a 5.1 Voice in 2013).

But Blindspot did not hold up quite as amazingly in the post-premiere weeks as The Blacklist; it dropped to a 2.6 in week two, hung in the mid-2's for a couple more weeks, and then spent most of the fall in the low-2's. After sitting out the entire The Voice hiatus, Blindspot returned a weaker show in the spring; it started with high-1's and faded as low as a 1.3 on several occasions. By this point, it was clear Blindspot was not ratings a win on the level of The Blacklist, but instead much more comparable to The Blacklist's predecessor Revolution.

The Wednesday Roller Coaster

And in season two, Blindspot met exactly the same fate as Revolution: a move to the Wednesday 8/7c hour. Early on, Blindspot handled that move much more impressively; it had a 1.3 in its first three Wednesday 8/7c telecasts, before tapering off lower into the 1's as the fall progressed. Things took another alarming step downward into the winter, as Blindspot started going fractional at what should've been one of the easiest parts of the season. At this point, it seemed like another Revolution-style flameout could be in the making. But Blindspot held up pretty well in the spring, basically not dropping from its winter high-fractionals, and it scored a third season renewal along with another timeslot downgrade.

The Friday Years

Blindspot never made much of a mark on Friday; it opened on the night with a 0.7 and slowly drifted downward until it hit a bunch of 0.5's in the spring. Season four got off to an even worse start, premiering at 0.5 and dropping to 0.4 in week two. But the show got a little bit of a boost in the winter when The Blacklist joined the night, which kept it from taking another massive drop in season average. Still, when the 0.4's came back in the spring, NBC decided it didn't want the show on its May sweeps schedule, opting for two-hour Dateline episodes and saving the last three Blindspots for after the regular season. Despite all of that, the show scored one more renewal, for a shortened fifth and final season. Don't expect NBC to give it priority treatment.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	2015-16	Monday 10:00	1.84		1.3	3.1	detail
2	2016-17	Wednesday 8:00	1.03	-44%	0.8	1.6	detail	C+
3	2017-18	Friday 8:00	0.62	-40%	0.5	0.7	detail	C-
4	2018-19		Friday 8:00	0.46	-25%	0.3	0.6	detail

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now19	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	2015-16	127	hit	1.20		87	215	215	91
2	2016-17	84	marginal	0.80	-34%	64	127	127	69
3	2017-18	56	flop	0.53	-33%	45	68	67	47
4	2018-19	49	flop	0.46	-13%	33	62	54	33
AVERAGE:		AVERAGE:	79	hit(Fri)
CAREER:		CAREER:	315	utility

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