Friday Ratings: ‘Hawaii Five-0’ And ‘WWE Friday Night SmackDown’ Dominate The Demos

Bruce Haring

Wrestling and law enforcement in paradise are a mismatch at first glance. But upon closer examination, both seek to triumph over evil-doers and bring order to chaos. Thus, it’s only fitting that Fox’s WWE Friday Night SmackDown and CBS’s crime drama Hawaii Five-0 share the individual show demo wars honors for Friday night, both bringing in an 0.8.

Continuing its strong start to the second half of the season, Hawaii Five-0 rang up an 0.8 to start the broadcast night for the eye network, albeit down slightly from last week’s 0.9. It also had the night’s second-largest total audience. That bled nicely into Magnum P.I. and Blue Bloods, both scoring an 0.7. Magnum was down slightly from last week’s 0.8, while Blue Bloods held steady, bringing in the largest total audience of the night.

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The demo that loves wrestling was again the story on Fox, bringing in a solid 0.8 for its two hours, up a tick from last week., but coming on strong in its second hour to dominate the 9 PM slot, leading to an overall network average victory for Fox.

At NBC, the night led with the strong debut of Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector, the story of a detective and profiler hot on the trail of a serial killer. The first show had an 0.6, jumping up for the two-hour Dateline to an 0.7, up a tick from last week.

ABC saw American Housewife at 0.6, with the sagging Fresh Off The Boat dropping to an 0.4. ABC’s 20/20 rebounded from that valley with an 0.6, down slightly from last week.

The CW had a rerun night, with repeats of Penn & Teller’s Fool Us and back-to-back Whose Line Is It Anyway?

 

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