WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: The 111.9 million viewers held in finals, and the final A18-49 rating was 37.7. That's down almost 4% from last year and the lowest Super Bowl average since 2009.
- The Late Show appeared to eke past the 2013 Elementary numbers in prelims, but that did not hold up in finals. The Late Show adjusted down to 20.55 million viewers and a 7.7 A18-49 rating, both slightly behind 2013 Elementary. That made Late Show the lowest direct Super Bowl lead-out in viewers since Alias in 2003, and the lowest in 18-49 rating in our records. (In 18-49, it was only 26% ahead of NFC Championship lead-out The X-Files!)
- TIME ZONE-ADJUSTED UPDATE #2: The Super Bowl averaged 111.9 million viewers according to time zone-adjusted prelims. This would be the third-highest total ever, behind last year (114.44m) and 2014 (112.19m). It is not unheard of for small adjustments to occur between now and the finals, so it could conceivably pass 2014. But a new record does not appear to be in the cards.
- TIME ZONE-ADJUSTED UPDATE #1: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert averaged 21.1 million viewers and a 7.9 demo rating. This just barely eked by the Elementary numbers from three years ago, which was bumped by a stadium black-out to an 11:11 start time. And it fell behind all other recent direct lead-outs.
- Before time zone-adjusted viewership and 18-49 numbers become available, the best we can do with the Super Bowl is look at the household overnights and the non-adjusted 18-49 numbers. The overnight was a 49.0, down just over 1% from last year's record-setting 49.7. It's close enough that the game could definitely still set a viewership record, but these numbers probably make it a slight underdog to do so. And it averaged a very preliminary 34.7 from 7:00 to 10:00, compared with a 35.0 for the game period last year (which adjusted up to a 39.1 final). Much better numbers to come!
- This Super Bowl Sunday is less interesting than usual for the primetime entertainment series world since a late night show occupied the post-Super Bowl slot for the first time. Since The Late Show with Stephen Colbert got a relatively late start (10:54ish), there's really nothing to be gleaned from the early 18-49 numbers. More to come!
These numbers are current through Thursday, February 4.
WHAT MATTERS:
- FX's The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story started with a 1.96. It was not quite as big as the last American Horror Story premiere (2.99), and it skewed a lot older (49% in the 18-49 demo vs. 66% for the last AHS season). But nothing else in scripted original cable was even that close to a 1.0 this week, so it's still huge by any other standard.
Young and Hungry
Wednesdays, 8/7c, Freeform
Super Bowl Lead-out Programs
WHAT MATTERS:
- Sleepy Hollow (0.9) arrived on Friday after sitting out the last two and a half months, and it was able to tie its Thursday average and slightly uptick from its last Thursday episode. This is probably the best it could've asked for, and is kinda reminiscent of how Fringe initially held up when it made a midseason Friday move back in 2011. We'll see if Sleepy Hollow can sustain this better than Fringe ultimately did. Hollow was still a big downgrade on MasterChef Junior, and thus Second Chance (0.6) dropped in its second Friday episode.
- NBC premiered a new season of Caught on Camera with Nick Cannon (0.9), which will apparently have a regular timeslot for the first time. At least for now, it was a slight upgrade on previous occupant Undateable. NBC also saw Grimm (0.9) tick up a bit from last week's poor return, and Dateline (1.0) was back to normal after last week's spike.
- ABC eked out the Friday lead even as Dr. Ken (1.0) inched back down and Shark Tank (1.4) gave back most of last week's big growth. Last Man Standing (1.2) was even and 20/20 (1.2) made up some ground at 10/9c. CBS had Undercover Boss (1.2) and a two-hour Super Bowl halftime special (1.2/1.1).
- The CW's The Vampire Diaries (0.4) shed a tenth in its second Friday episode, but The Originals clung to another 0.4.
WHAT MATTERS:
- FINALS UPDATE: The Big Bang Theory (3.8) went up a tenth, while Life in Pieces (2.2) and Mom (1.7) each went down a tenth.
- Thursday champ The Big Bang Theory (3.7) was back in originals for the first time in three weeks, and that was not welcome news for some of its competition. NBC's You, Me and the Apocalypse (0.9) had a tough second week, dropping 25%, and the downward momentum continued throughout NBC's night. The Blacklist (1.5) was just barely down at 9/8c, but perhaps most worrying of all was the two-tenth hit to Shades of Blue (1.1) at 10/9c.
- The CW also got stung in the 8/7c hour with Legends of Tomorrow (0.9), though it stayed on par with this week's episode of Arrow since it was also down. The 100 did well to cling to 0.6 again at 9/8c.
- Though a Big Bang repeat didn't hurt Life in Pieces' last original two weeks ago, its original actually did help; Life in Pieces (2.3) is preliminarily tracking toward its best rating since the series premiere. Mom (1.8) was also up a touch, but Angel from Hell (1.4) and Elementary (1.1) remained frozen.
- ABC saw a slight decline for the second night of Madoff (1.0), but an aftershow actually grew at 10/9c (1.2). Fox won yet another pre-TGIT Thursday with American Idol (2.2/2.3).
WEEK ONE
Rating: 1.2
Lead-in: local programming
Competition: Beyond the Tank (1.0),
The Big Bang Theory (R) /
Life in Pieces (2.2/2.0),
Heroes Reborn (1.0),
American Idol (2.4)
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