One week into the new season, the broadcast networks can count a few promising starts, and several clunkers.
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NBC led into “Blindspot” with “The Voice” (3.3, 11.83 million). And in its second week, new half-hour “Life in Pieces” (2.0/6 in 18-49, 8.9 million viewers overall) slid 23% (0.6) from its OK premiere and placed second among the Big Four in the demo at 8:30.
NBC thriller Blindspot is among the early freshmen standouts. That will soon be followed by a Back 9 episodic order. Both shows saw healthy 50%+ 18-49 gains in L3, though Minority Report has a steep hill to climb off a small Live+SD base. Though that figure had climbed to 7.3 million by Friday (including 1 million online streams) and was pronounced by Fox “a model for contemporary viewership”, it’s still a weak showing for the opener of a heavily promoted new series from producer Ryan Murphy, whose American Horror Story did better on cable’s FX network.
There are signs of possible vulnerability in CBS’ lineup, which the network successfully shored up last season with the addition of Scorpion.
CBS’ “Life in Pieces” took the most important fall among the many newbies, although it had a a lot softer “The Big Bang Theory” lead-in this time round.
NBC was fourth in ratings and third in viewers with 7.8 million, also airing only premieres of “The Mysteries of Laura” and “Law & Order: SVU“.
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Gotham stood tall in the ratings Monday night, matching the season premiere with 4.6 million viewers and a 1.6 rating, but that’s the end of the good news as basically everything else went down in live ratings. The premiere is already up to a 4.5 rating among adults 18-49. ESPN’s franchise is expected to top the night, with NBC No.1 in 18-49 (3.0) and total viewers (10.9 million) among the broadcast nets.
