WHAT MATTERS:
- ABC had a passable start in the first half of its Wednesday comedy night, with The Goldbergs (0.70) looking steady-ish in Plus and the new reboot of The Wonder Years (0.67) dropping just a touch in the 8:30 half-hour. At 9/8c, The Conners (0.65) aired a live episode, and season two of Home Economics (0.41) had a weak start in its new 9:30 timeslot. A Million Little Things (0.29) rounded out the night poorly, at almost an entire tenth below its June finale.
- On the unscripted side, Survivor returned to CBS with a two-hour premiere (1.06) after fully sitting out the 2020-21 season. This was down just 16% from its fall premiere two years ago, and thus a considerable upgrade in Plus (probably marking the biggest Survivor premiere in that metric since the mid-aughts). Big Brother (0.61) suffered considerably in the 10/9c hour.
- Survivor came just shy of topping the night against Fox's The Masked Singer (1.11), which took a big dip vs. the 1.57 fall 2020 premiere. (Though it was still down a bit less y2y than the last spring premiere). TMS launched newbie singing competition Alter Ego (0.65). Ego did not look as promising as past post-TMS premieres like I Can See Your Voice and LEGO Masters, but perhaps a hair better than the spring 2021 occupant Game of Talents (which had a 0.73 out of a 1.31).
- And Chicago Med, Chicago Fire and Chicago PD began their fourth season as a trio on NBC Wednesday. Med (0.78) had easily the worst year-to-year trend of the three, in part because it had a somewhat flukishly high premiere last year, while Fire (0.86) and PD (0.87) looked healthy as ever.
