RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Grimm’, ‘Hawaii Five-O’ & ‘Nikita’ Hit Series Lows, ‘Shark Tank’ Steady, ’20/20′ Up As ABC Wins Night
Friday was a bit unusual in that it was one of the few nights of the past couple of weeks when a holiday special of some sort wasn’t on TV. Not that Christmas was absent from the small screen just two weeks from the big day, though some shows had less cheer than others. On Shark Tank (2.0/7), ugly Christmas sweaters reared their often ironic heads as is common this time of year. Not that it caused anyone to look away as the entrepreneurial reality show stayed steady with last week’s season high among adults 18-49 and was once again the top rated show of Friday night. The rest of ABC’s line-up was a bit more of a roller coast with Last Man Standing (1.2/5) down 14% from its December 6 show while The Neighbors (0.9/3) was steady with last week and 20/20 (1.4/5) shot up 27% in the key demo. While the news mag series will still be in originals for the next couple of weeks, last night was the last new shows of the year for the rest of ABC’s Friday prime time with everyone returning on January 10. At least ABC can take some Christmas cheer that, with a 1.5/5 rating, they won the night again among the 18-49s. With 8.090 million watching, CBS had the highest viewership of Friday night and was No. 2 in the demo with a 1.3/4 rating.
At 10 PM, Blue Bloods (1.2/4) was the most watched show of the night with 10.75 million tuning in but the family Gotham police series was down 20% from its last original on November 22. The rest of CBS’ prime saw similar fates with Undercover Boss (1.4/5) down 17% from its last new show on November 15, though it won its 8 PM slot, and Hawaii Five-O sliding 20% from its last original three weeks back. That’s a series low for the island cop show.
The situation was even grimmer on NBC. In double episode winter finale, Grimm took a blow. Not only was the 9 PM (1.2/4) episode of the procedural fantasy series down 25% from its December 6 show to match the previous series low but the 10 PM (1.1/4) telecast fell to an all time low for the three season show. Grimm is set to return on January 3. Starting the network’s night off, Dateline (1.1/4) was also down, 21% from last week’s season high.
On the CW, Nikita (0.2/1) moved towards its series end at the end of the year. It was not an easy path as the show cratered 33% from last week to tie a season low. It’s lead-in, The Carrie Diaries (02.1) was also down 33% from its December 6 airing. Fox’s double shot of the troubled Raising Hope saw its 9 PM (0.7/2) and 9:30 PM (0.6/2) head south 13% and 14% from last week’s surging and steady shows.
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