RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Big Brother’ Rises, ‘Welcome To Sweden’ & ‘Working The Engels’ Debut Soft, ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ & ‘NY Med’ Up
The television world was very busy yesterday with the announcement of the 66th annual Primetime Emmy Awards nominations, but it also was pretty packed in primetime last night as well. After a quiet Thursday last week because of the July 4th holiday, all of the Big 4 were playing originals last night. With just Big Brother (2.0/7) on, CBS was the lightest of all the networks originals-wise. Having said that, the second elimination of the voyeuristic reality show’s 16th season proved the heavyweight of the night. The 1-hour BB was the top show of the night among Adults 18-49 and the second-most-watched show of Thursday’s primetime with 6.15 million viewers after the 7.86 million who tuned in for a Big Bang Theory (1.7/9) encore. However, the real news is the demo leap that Big Brother made out of last week’s holiday airing – the show was up 25% over its slumped July 3 broadcast, which was a series low. It was also up 11% from its June 26 show among the 18-49s. All of which meant, with the BBT and The Millers (1.3/5) encores and a repeat of the debut of the new Halle Berry sci-fi thriller series Extant (0.7/2), that CBS took the night both in the 18-49 demo with a 1.4 rating and in total viewers with 5.61 million watching.
Over on NBC, there was a full slate of action but not much traction. The debut of comedies Welcome To Sweden (0.9/4) and the Andrea Martin starrer Working The Engels (0.7/2) may have seen the former as the network’s second-highest-rated summer comedy in 10 years, according to NBC, but it was a steep drop from No. 1. Sweden was down 31% from the surprisingly strong debut of Undateable in the same time slot back on May 29. Its 9:30 PM lead-out fared even worse, with a 46% drop from Undateable’s debut in that time slot on May 29. Working The Engels also saw a 22% fall from its lead-in, which is no laughing matter even for a summer series. Down 10% from its last original on May 12, Hollywood Game Night (0.9/4) started the night for NBC. Last Comic Standing (1.0/3) ended the night for the network with a 9% dip from its July 3 show to tie a low in preliminary numbers.
They cut it down to the Final 4 on Hell’s Kitchen (1.5/6) last night, but the Gordon Ramsay series saw a 15% lift over last week. At 9 PM, Gang Related (0.8/3) was also up, rising 14% from its July 3 results. With a 1.1/4 rating, Fox tied Univision for the second-highest-rated network spot on Thursday. Fox was the second place network in terms of total viewers with 3.58 million watching
Coming out of the Independence Day eve last week, ABC had nothing but good news last night. Black Box (0.7/3) and Rookie Blue (0.9/3) were up 17% and 13% from their series lows of last week. The good news got even better with NY Med (0.9/3). Up 29% from its July 3 show, the hospital docu-series matched its premiere for a second season high in the demo.
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