‘The Originals’ Season Finale Ratings Even With 2016, ‘WWYD?’ Returns Steady
The notion of “family forever” had a bite taken out of it on the Season 4 finale of The Originals (0.3/1) last night. Add to that some blood chugging, a tomb full of evil, a skull circle, a plan to defeat enemy The Hollow, and notions of redemption and The Vampire Diaries spinoff left little on the table on a mainly encore filled Friday.
Dead-even with its June 16 results, “The Feast of All Sinners” episode of the renewed Originals was also exactly the same among adults 18-49 with its Season 3 finale of May 20 last year. Besides the fact that such a key demo result is rare in today’s TV landscape, it also should be noted that the 9 PM Season 3 ender of The Originals faced a Shark Tank finale and more on a much more competitive night.
As for the rest of last night, repeat heavy NBC and ABC, which had some originals of its own, were tied for the top demo spot on Friday. Both nets snagged a 0.9/5 with encore rich CBS winning the viewership category with an audience of 4.94 million. As is the case when it has an original of its own, a Blue Bloods (0.6/3) repeat was the most watched show of the night with 5.5 million sets of eyeballs – or about just under half of what an original episode of the Tom Selleck-led NYPD family drama usually gets.
ABC actually won the 10 PM slot with a night topping new 20/20 (1.0/5), which was up 100% in the demo over last week’s 9-11 PM airing that partially faced the U.S. Open Golf Championship on Fox. NBC’s Dateline (0.9/5) matched its June 16 airing in the 18-49 demo.
Amidst all the news mags, encores and that Originals finale, there was a premiere on Friday as ABC’s What Would You Do? (0.9/5) returned for its 13th season. The John Quiñones hosted hidden camera series was the same in the key demo as its debut last year and saw a 5% bop up in viewers from its June 17, 2016 opening to 4.0 million.
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