TV Ratings: 'Big Bang Theory,' 'Grey's Anatomy' and 'Person of Interest' are Thursday standouts
'Elementary' also contributes to CBS wins
Thursday's "The Big Bang Theory"
Credit: CBS
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While the addition of "Two and a Half Men" to Thursday didn't quite produce the magical retention CBS craved, "Big Bang Theory," "Person of Interest" and "Elementary" all ruled their time slots and helped the network win the night in most key measures.
Among other notables, ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" followed up on a cliffhanger finale with a strong return, but "Scandal" squandered most of its lead-in. The news also wasn't terrific for "Glee," which took a big drop against Thursday competition, though there was a decent week-to-week hold for FOX's "The X Factor."
[Note that NBC had NFL preemptions in both Cleveland and Baltimore. They like their NFL in Cleveland and Baltimore. So pay no attention to these NBC numbers. They're going down.]
Among adults 18-49, CBS averaged a 3.4 rating, tops in the key demographic for Thursday night. ABC was second with a 2.9 rating, followed closely by FOX's 2.8 rating. NBC was fourth with a 1.7 rating and The CW averaged a 0.3 key demo rating for the night.
Things were less close overall where CBS averaged an estimated 13.8 million viewers and an 8.6 rating/14 share. There was a big drop to ABC's 6.0/10 and 9.21 million viewers and then to FOX's 4.5/7 and 7.56 million viewers for Thursday night. NBC averaged 4.655 million viewers and a 3.0/5 for Thursday. On The CW, 727,000 viewers tuned in along with a 0.5/1.
8 p.m. - CBS ruled the 8 p.m. hour with "The Big Bang Theory" (15.31 million viewers and a 4.8 key demo rating) and "Two and a Half Men" (12.37 million viewers and a 3.5 key demo), which delivered a huge 8:30 improvement over last year's launch of the quickly cancelled "How To Be a Gentleman." FOX was second with 9.19 million viewers and a 3.2 rating among adults 18-49 for "The X Factor." ABC's "Last Resort" averaged 9.08 million viewers and a 2.2 key demo rating, slightly above the premiere numbers for "Charlie's Angels" last fall and slightly below the total viewer numbers (but above the key demo numbers) for "Missing" in the spring. ["Last Resort" posted growth at the half-hour and, as always, we can't estimate any impact from early online viewership of the pilot.] NBC's "Saturday Night Live" special and "Up All Night" averaged 4.94 million viewers and a 1.8 key demo rating, but both were up by so much over last week due to NFL preemptions that there's no point in breaking out the numbers. The CW's "Vampire Diaries" repeat averaged 771,000 viewers and a 0.3 key demo rating.
9 p.m. - "Person of Interest" returned with 14.27 million viewers to win the 9 p.m. hour for CBS, but the second year drama trailed among adults 18-49 with a 2.9 rating. ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" won the hour with a 4.3 key demo rating and averaged a 11.55 million viewers for second. FOX's "Glee" slipped to 5.925 million viewers and a 2.5 key demo rating in third. NBC's "The Office" and "Parks and Recreation" averaged an inflated 4.85 million viewers and a 2.2 key demo rating. The CW's "The Next" averaged 683,000 viewers and a 0.3 key demo rating.
10 p.m. - "Elementary" controlled the 10 p.m. for CBS averaged 13.29 million viewers and a 3.1 rating among adults 18-49, though the Sherlock Holmes drama dipped to 12.55 million viewers and a 2.9 key demo rating in its second half-hour. ABC's "Scandal" averaged 7.01 million viewers and a 2.2 key demo rating, though it also took a big half-hour drop. ABC's "Rock Center" averaged 4.17 million viewers and a 1.2 key demo rating in third.
NBC UPDATE: Taking NFL out of the equation, "Up All Night" adjusted to a 1.4 rating among adults 18-49, up from last week. "The Office" was steady from last week's key demo tally with a 2.1 rating. Both "SNL" and "Parks and Rec" were down by a tenth of a point in the key demo.
All ratings information comes from preliminary Fast National Nielsen data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are subject to change, particularly in the case of live events.
A long-time member of the TCA Board and a longer-time blogger of "American Idol," Dan Fienberg writes about TV, except for when he writes about movies or sometimes writes about the Red Sox. But never music. He would sound stupid talking about music.
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Login or create a HitFix account Login SignupJohn
September 28, 2012 at 12:50PM EST Reply to CommentI'm wondering how much of an impact the NFL preemptions actually impacted the NBC numbers. If you'll bear with me I'd like to do some quick back of the envelope estimations. I think this calc is mostly sound, but I'm no expert.
Baltimore and Cleveland metro areas account for roughly 2.5% of total TV households. Let’s assume that’s the same for the demo, so they have 2.5 ratings points to put to use in the demo. Sunday night football for NBC delivered a 6.4 demo rating (albeit against the Emmys). People in Baltimore and Cleveland do indeed like their football, so let’s say locally it got triple the demo rating for SNF, which would be a 19.2. So if you take 19.2% of their 2.5 national points, that results in a 0.48 demo rating influence. While that would certainly drop SNL and Up All Night way down, it doesn’t look quite as dire for The Office and Parks in comparison to last week.
dan John - Ack! That hurt my head. I may do ratings every morning, but I hate math. I would say, however, that nothing there appears to be inherently wrong!
September 28, 2012 at 12:54PM EST-Daniel
Liz
September 28, 2012 at 1:43PM EST Reply to CommentSo if Elementary has an average of 3.1, their first half hour must have been a 3.3 (and their second a 2.9), meaning that it grew a decent amount out of Person of Interest, right? Not bad for a 10pm show.
dan Liz - Honestly, I think CBS hoped for a bit better from "Two and a Half Men" and a bit better from "Person of Interest" and I think "Elementary" came in right around expectations, so all's probably well assuming there isn't a huge drop-off next week...
September 28, 2012 at 2:42PM EST-Daniel
Dan3320
September 28, 2012 at 2:35PM EST Reply to CommentDan - what's the consensus on the numbers for Last Resort - good, bad, or meh? Love the show and would hate to see it struggle ratings-wise, based primarily on the horrendous time slot. Thanks!
dan Dan3320 - Too early to tell. ABC teased the pilot early online and they're gonna reair the pilot tonight, I think. So a lot will depend on next week. If the numbers stay 100 percent identical? ABC'll be perfectly satisfied with that. It won't be a hit, but that'll be OK. Then again, as the story says, "Charlie's Angels" premiered last fall to *almost* identical numbers and was gone within two months because people tuned out immediately. Obviously, "Last Resort" is much, much better than "Charlie's Angels." But we'll see what the drop looks like next week. For now? These numbers aren't awful. So that's something...
September 28, 2012 at 2:45PM EST-Daniel
Stormshadow4life so that's a potential bummer. This was pretty much the only new drama I had any interest in...I'll continue to record it, but I'm not watching it until its future is a little more secure.
September 28, 2012 at 7:56PM ESTEric Quintern
September 28, 2012 at 6:38PM EST Reply to CommentWas moving Glee to Thursdays a bad move by fox based on those numbers? And do you see them declining more in the coming weeks.
dan Eric - Ratings for "Glee" were declining regardless of what FOX did with it and I suspect that, yes, the numbers have a little bit more declining to come. But not that much more. Leaving it on Tuesday to get clobbered wasn't helping and it seemed reasonable that it would be a good pairing with "X Factor" and that nothing else would be nearly as good a pairing.
September 28, 2012 at 6:43PM ESTI think "Glee" has one more season left in it after this one, which probably isn't bad by Ryan Murphy burn-out standards. The only question is if FOX decides the post-Idol real estate in the spring is too valuable to waste on "Glee," but the network doesn't really have anything else to logically go there...
-Daniel