WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: MasterChef (1.2) adjusted up (to tie last season's premiere) and Wayward Pines (0.8) adjusted down to a new low.
- NBC dominated broadcast primetime for the second straight night with the return of American Ninja Warrior (1.7/1.8), which came very close to last year's 1.8 premiere on Memorial Day. Another year of raw numbers growth could be tough for Ninja Warrior unless it can blossom post-premiere once again, but it's still clearly a very strong show by summer standards.
- At 10/9c, NBC brought back medical drama The Night Shift (1.1) to middling results. In the context of last season, it doesn't seem that bad; back in spring 2015, it was often pulling 1.2's with high-2 The Voice lead-ins.
- On Fox, the return of MasterChef (1.1) was in the same sort of boat as ANW; it was very close to last year's premiere (1.2), but last year's premiere was seemingly in a much tougher spot. (In this case, it faced a lot of regular season finales.) Last year, it grew from that 1.2 premiere to mid-1's for most of the rest of the way. Is a similar trend possible here, maybe benefiting after Ninja leaves the night in a couple weeks?
- And it was another decent week for Wayward Pines (0.9) at 9/8c, which matched last week's premiere.
- On the eve of the NBA Finals, ABC had the two-hour finale of 500 Questions (0.8) leading into repeats of Modern Family (0.8) and The Goldbergs (0.6).
- CBS had repeats of Undercover Boss (0.9), Criminal Minds (0.9) and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (0.8). CW had an iHeartRadio special (0.2) and a repeat of Supernatural (0.2).
500 Questions
Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: America's Got Talent (2.6) adjusted up to match last year's premiere. 500 Questions (0.8), Fresh Off the Boat (0.5), NCIS: NO (0.9) and The Flash (0.3) adjusted down.
- NBC burst back onto the summer scene with the healthy two-hour premiere of America's Got Talent (2.3/2.8), as Simon Cowell's debut on the show roughly matched last year's 2.6 premiere.
- At 10/9c was the network's latest stab at the variety format with Maya and Marty (1.5). This was a relatively uninspiring start, already three tenths behind where I Can Do That (1.8) launched on the same night last year. (Though it does look better when stacked up with The Night Shift's 1.6 premiere two years ago.)
- ABC's 500 Questions was back with another two hours (0.8/0.9), about in line with its two-hour premiere ratings on Thursday. Fresh Off the Boat repeated at 0.7 for two episodes in the 10/9c hour.
- On Fox, Hotel Hell (0.8) and Coupled (0.5) each matched last week.
- The CW's Containment (0.4) held up fairly well in its first episode without an original The Flash lead-in, losing just a tenth. (And it had some weak 0.5's in its later post-Flash eps anyway.) Its Flash repeat lead-in also had a 0.4.
- And CBS' 100th episode of Person of Interest (1.0) was back up into the ones for the first time in a couple weeks, leading out of repeats of NCIS (0.9) and NCIS: New Orleans (1.0).
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: Bones (0.9) and Modern Family (0.8) adjusted up.
- ABC's making a big investment in the game show space this summer, and it started with the two-hour return of 500 Questions
(0.8/0.9) as a five-night bridge between the end of the regular season
and the start of the NBA Finals. This was a step down from the very low
1's it got for most of its similar run last year, but ABC is at least
not going to be using it as a lead-in to anything important this time
around. Repeats of Modern Family (0.7) and Black-ish (0.6) rounded out the night.
- Fox plowed into the early summer weeks with its regular Thursday lineup of Bones (0.8) and American Grit (0.5), both of which were disappointingly down a tenth from last week when the competition was far fiercer.
- NBC had the return of special "Red Nose Day" (0.6/0.5), down a bit more from last year's already soft special (0.8). Strong (0.7) inched up at 8/7c.
- It was repeat mode to open the summer for CBS, with comedies (1.4/1.0/1.0/0.9) leading into a just-installed repeat run for Code Black (0.7). The CW also had repeats with Legends of Tomorrow (0.3) and The Flash (0.3).
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: Aquarius (1.1) and The Big Bang Theory (R) (1.5) adjusted up.
- NBC's summer drama Aquarius kicked off with 5.7 million viewers and a 1.0 demo rating. This is not awful by summer standards, and the '60s-set drama didn't skew that much older than its Dateline lead-in (6.4 million viewers and a 1.2). However, the half-hour breakdowns don't bode well for the future, as it went 1.3 -> 1.0 -> 1.0 -> 0.9 over the four 30-minute segments. Also, NBA Finals competition looms next week, and there's the fact that anyone who's truly interested can watch future episodes online now.
- On Fox, Wayward Pines (1.2) held onto its week-two spike and beat Aquarius head-to-head, getting an assist from the return of Bones (1.2) for a run of summer originals. Bones had its best rating since the first spring episode, perhaps benefiting from lightweight competition.
- Two more hours of 500 Questions wrapped up the season in typical fashion, averaging a 1.0 in the 8:00 hour and 1.1 at 9:00. CBS' repeat of The Big Bang Theory (1.4) was Thursday's top program but dropped a couple tenths from last week.
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: The night's two biggest winners, MasterChef (1.6) and The Briefcase (1.4), each picked up another tenth in finals.
- CBS got into the summer original game with Wednesday 8/7c reality series The Briefcase (1.3), which had one of the network's more promising starts in this role that bridges the end of the regular season with the start of Big Brother. It was even with the 2012 premiere of Dogs in the City (1.3) and well above 2013's debut of The American Baking Competition (1.0).
- Fox had a more middling debut from its own new entry, the 9/8c reality series Bullseye (1.1). But they did have a major silver lining in that for the second straight year, MasterChef (1.5) shook off a bad premiere rating to grow significantly in week two. Even this point is down more than average year-to-year (it grew to 1.8 in week two of last season), but the season may not be in as much trouble as it appeared last week.
- The penultimate 500 Questions (1.0) inched down for ABC, while NBC had modest interest for an I Can Do That encore (0.7) and the two-hour iHeartRadio Country Festival (1.0).
WHAT MATTERS:
- NBC kicked off another season of America's Got Talent (2.6) with a slightly larger-than-average drop from last year's 3.0 premiere. It also had a decent launch from unscripted lead-out I Can Do That (1.8), which was an improvement on last season's premiere of The Night Shift (1.6).
- On Fox, there was very little interest in the return of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (0.8), which only about matched the Plus it was doing for its last regular season run on Friday in 2008-09. Hell's Kitchen (1.1) also slumped.
- ABC had another OK result from 500 Questions (1.1), which handily beat 5th Grader at 8/7c. But the two-hour return of Extreme Weight Loss (0.9) was very weak, down a massive 31% from last year's premiere.
- And the CW began a three-week summer run of straggling originals for iZombie (0.6). Like back in week four, the show was even week-to-week despite not having an original The Flash lead-in, a much more promising look than the usual post-Flash delivery.
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: 2 Broke Girls (1.1) inched up. History had some older interest but a modest demo rating for the premiere of miniseries Texas Rising, which averaged just over 4 million viewers and a 0.6 A18-49.
- NBC began its summer season with the premiere of American Ninja Warrior (1.8), whose growth in recent seasons has officially made it a part of the summer elite. This rating was up two tenths from last year's 1.6 Memorial Day premiere, though last year it rose from there and ended up averaging a 1.8 for the season. Ninja led into a middling premiere for the latest Bear Grylls reality series The Island (1.2), which was a bit behind the debut of Grylls' Running Wild (1.4) in July last year.
- ABC was the only other network in originals, as game show event 500 Questions (1.1) was back in originals after a couple nights off and rose to its best rating since the premiere on Wednesday. It was of no help to The Bachelorette (1.6), which took another big Memorial Day drop (but was still even year-to-year).
- In repeat land, CBS' regular season lineup (0.8) led by 2 Broke Girls (1.0) and Mike and Molly (1.0) edged Fox's encore of the two-hour MasterChef premiere (0.7).
500 Questions
Wednesdays, 8/7c, ABC
WHAT MATTERS:
- That Terrence Howard sure knows how to bring viewers back for week two! Just like his megahit Empire from four months ago, Wayward Pines (1.2) was on the upswing in week two, picking up two tenths from last week's debut. And its lead-in, an encore of the pilot (0.8), was just two tenths behind that episode's first-run rating a week ago. Certainly at least some of this can be explained away by a drastic decrease in competition (it faced Scandal and The Blacklist finales last week), but this at least opens the possibility that there could be some heat here.
- The night's other original series 500 Questions (1.0) had a reasonable second outing hold, staying in the 1's for all four half-hours. But that seems unlikely to continue for tonight's hour, up against low holiday Friday viewing levels.
- The only other original programming was NBC's little-watched three-hour charity event Red Nose Day (0.8).
Above based on preliminary adults 18-49 ratings unless otherwise noted. Full table forthcoming!
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: Finals upticks for Survivor (2.3) and Modern Family (2.3) kept them tied as the top program on the last day of the season.
- On the last day of the 2014-15 regular season, ABC premiered a couple more summer series, the new game show 500 Questions (1.2) at 8/7c and returnee Celebrity Wife Swap (1.0) at 10/9c. For 500 Questions, this is a pretty reasonable start by summer filler standards, though it will be a challenge to hold on well since much of this seven-night run will be positioned around the low-viewed Memorial Day weekend. Wife Swap, meanwhile, was even with the first episode of its 2013-14 run, which aired after Trophy Wife in mid-April (though the show usually did better in the summer with an Extreme Weight Loss lead-in).
- The downside for ABC was that these incompatible surroundings brought down the finales of Modern Family (2.2) and Black-ish (1.6) to a pretty ridiculous degree. This marked the first time Modern ever went below that 2.5 on Thanksgiving Eve in season one, and it wasn't even close.
- CBS wrapped up Survivor (2.2) with no heat for the two-hour finale and a 1.8 for the reunion at 10:00. Opposite Survivor, Fox had a weak two-hour return from summer staple MasterChef (1.2). This was 20% behind the already low 1.5 that began last season on Memorial Day; that 1.5 ended up being the outright lowest point of the season, and it was consistently around 2.0 in the second half of the season. So unless this number was similarly depressed by the Survivor competition, the franchise is setting up for a very ugly year-to-year trend.
- NBC had the only big four dramas with a slightly up The Mysteries of Laura (1.1) and slightly down Law and Order: SVU (1.4) and Chicago PD (1.4). CW's finale of Supernatural (0.7) was even despite a repeat lead-in (0.3).
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