USA’s ‘Royal Pains’ Returns With Series-Low Demo Score
USA drama “Royal Pains” looked sluggish in kicking off its fifth season Wednesday, slipping to the show’s lowest young-adult rating to date. Holding up better relative to last year was sked partner “Necessary Roughness,” which was beginning its third season.
According to Nielsen estimates, the comedic medical drama “Royal Pains” averaged a 0.71 rating in adults 18-49 and 3.68 million viewers overall in Wednesday’s 9 o’clock hour. This is a rather sharp decline in young adults from last year’s 0.97 and from the big 1.40 it did in opening its third season back in 2011.
In its time period, “Royal Pains” was beaten in both 18-49 and 25-54 by repeats of “The Big Bang Theory” on TBS and “Duck Dynasty” on A&E.
“Royal” did not hit a series low in total viewers, as it had a few episodes draw smaller overall crowds last season, including the show’s two-hour December episode (3.25 million).
Sports therapist drama “Necessary Roughness” averaged a 0.65 rating in adults 18-49 (down 20% from last year) and 2.61 million viewers. It limited its year-to-year loss in adults 25-54 to 8% (0.76 vs. 0.83), pretty good considering that lead-in “Royal Pains” was down 25% in the demo (0.90 vs. 1.20).
At OWN, “Love Thy Neighbor” (average of 0.33 in 18-49, 1.13 million viewers overall for its two half-hours) was down for a second straight week. Two weeks ago, the comedy averaged a 0.60 in 18-49 and 1.73 million total viewers.
The night’s top program among adults 18-49 was Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals on NBC, as the triple-overtime contest between the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks earned a 2.5/9. In total viewers, the game’s 6.36 million is more than double the 2.90 million for last year’s Game 1 (Los Angeles-New Jersey) and is the best since the Detroit-Philadelphia finals of 1997 opened with 6.37 million on Fox.
Fox’s “MasterChef” was the No. 1 entertainment series of the night, averaging a 2.4/8 in 18-49 and 5.84 million viewers overall for its two hours, up a bit from last week.
At CBS, “The American Baking Competition” (1.2/4 in 18-49, 5.68 million viewers overall) was up a tick for a second straight week.
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