But it was nowhere near the 18.6 million who dashed through the Alps with Carrie Underwood on “Sound of Music Live!”, which kicked off NBC’s live-musical journey in 2013.
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For many black households across the country, last night felt like the Super Bowl, as folks tuned in for the long-awaited premiere of NBC’s The Wiz Live! This video was licensed from Grab Networks.
In comparison, The Wiz Live! crushed last year’s production, Peter Pan Live!
The viewership number was also better than NBC’s live musical past year “Peter Pan Live!” which brought in 9.2 million viewers.
The network will air an encore of The Wiz Live! on Saturday, Dec. 19 at 8 p.m. Note that with the major-market appeal of “The Wiz Live!”.
The advertising community, at least, was more receptive to The Wiz’s potential.
Solid performances, colorful costumes and backdrops and a fun, edgier book all helped The Wiz stand out where its two NBC predecessors did not.
With a terrific cast of Queen Latifah as The Wiz, Mary J. Blige as the Wicked Witch of the West, Uzo Aduba as the Good Witch of the North and newcomer Shanice Williams as Dorothy, David Alan Grier as the Lion and Common as The Bouncer, the almost three-hour production garnered almost universal raves.
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TiVo Research said the third most-watched moment from The Wiz was behind-the-scenes footage during the credits, an indication that a large portion of the audience stayed until the end. NBC was able to charge premium rates for ads and, according to Nielsen, it also got lots of Twitter love – approximately 1.6 million individual tweets were sent during the broadcast.
