US Television Ratings

Early national overnight ratings:


Dallas Fort Worth Super Bowl ratings:

Philadelphia’s win averaged 103.4 million viewers, the smallest Super Bowl audience since 2009 (98 million). The NBC telecast had a 18-49 demo of 30.9.
The post-Super Bowl episode of This is Us posted a demo rating of 9.3 and just under 27 million viewers. It was the biggest total audience for a Super Bowl lead-out since The Voice in 2012 (37.61 million) and the best 18-49 number since New Girl earned an 11.4 in 2014.

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Okay, I was wrong, thank you @littlegezzybear and Johnson though.

Sunday’s Academy Awards averaged 26.5 million viewers (the smallest audience ever) with a 18-49 demo rating of 6.4. The previous low was 32 million viewers for the 2008 ceremony.

American Idol made a solid debut on ABC on Sunday. It averaged 10.34 million viewers with a 18-49 demo rating of 2.3, beating a Fox special O.J. Simpson: The Lost Confession? (4.4 million, 1.2 rating). TV by the Numbers noted Idol’s ABC rating was smaller than any of the show’s 15 season debuts on Fox.

The Voice went head to head with American Idol on its second night and beat it convincingly.

ABC’s Roseanne reboot delivered premiere demo ratings we haven’t seen on broadcast TV in awhile. The first of the two episodes drew massive 17.7 million viewers and a 4.9 rating in adults 18-49. The second episode at 8:30 PM rose even higher to 18.6 million viewers and a 5.3 in 18-49. For the 8 PM hour, Roseanne averaged a 5.1 in 18-49 and 18.2 million viewers.

Roseanne easily ranks as the biggest series debut this season, topping CBS’ Young Sheldon (17.2 million, 3.8), which had a big The Big Bang Theory lead-in.

Even more impressive, the politically charged Roseanne, which made pre-launch headlines for Barr’s support of Donald Trump returned last night to an audience that was up 10% from the May 1997 finale telecast 21 years ago and topped the viewership of the final 12 telecasts of the original run’s 1996-97 season.

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Roseanne has set a new 7-day timeshifting rating record in the US. The first episode gained 8.61 million over seven days, breaking the previous mark of 7.9 million set by the debut of The Good Doctor last year. Roseanne also added 2.9 points to its 18-49 rating in the 7-day period, tied for the biggest seven-day gain ever.

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Lifetime telemovie Harry and Meghan: A Royal Romance did quite well on Sunday. It tied for third among cable originals in the adults 18-49 demographic with a 0.6 rating and drew 2.21 million viewers, the second-largest of the day. Harry and Meghan will be shown on Seven tomorrow (Thursday) at 9.30pm.

Monday’s Emmy Awards had a 18-49 demo of 2.4, lower than last year’s 2.5 and is a new low in the demo rating. The ceremony pulled 10.17 million viewers, lower than last year’s 11.38 million. It must be said the Emmys were up against NFL Monday Night Football, Better Call Saul and WWE Raw this year.

That makes a difference?

Had a look at the ratings for Better Call Saul last week. The ratings have declined with each season. Probably time it was wrapped up as it hasn’t lived up to the reputation of Breaking Bad.

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How do you mean? It’s been critically acclaimed and is a wonderful, stand alone show. Also it’s pretty much rating the same as BB did for most of its run.

That said, it’s clearly a niche show and I’m not sure why it “must be said” the Emmys was up against it. Or WWE Raw for that matter. Both hardly likely to cause a ripple in Emmys ratings.

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I was probably being a little harsh regarding the quality considering the approval ratings amongst fans have been very good, although the television ratings have been declining across the four seasons. It has taken a while but the latest episodes appear to be building towards a payoff. While interesting to see the backstory i just think too much time has been spent treading water. The brother relationship stuff just went on too long for my liking.

I guess it doesn’t help that I bought the DVDs and binge watched each season of Breaking Bad over it’s run whereas I’ve been streaming Saul week to week. That’s possibly effecting my enjoyment of the show.

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The second season of The Good Doctor got off to a bad start, with a 18-49 rating of 1.3 and 7.35 million total viewers (adjusted for NFL pre-emptions in some markets), beaten by the debut of Manifest on NBC (demo rating of 2.2 and 10.4 million total viewers). The demo ratings of the final season of The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon were also lower than last season premiere.

EDIT: The first episode of Murphy Brown in 20 years could only manage a demo rating of 1.1 and 7.5 million viewers, despite having three comedies (The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon and Mom) as the lead-in.

NBC dominated Sunday night with the NFL playoff game between Chicago and Philadelphia plus the Golden Globe Awards. The Golden Globes had a preliminary 18-49 rating of 4.5 and 15.73 million viewers, compared with last year’s final rating of 5.0.
EDIT: final ratings have the Golden Globes at 5.2 rating and 18.61 million viewers.

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Sunday’s clash between Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots was not only the lowest scoring game in Super Bowl history, it was also the lowest rated Super Bowl game on TV in 10 years. According to TV By the Numbers, the game posted a 44.9 household rating in the metered markets, not only down from the 2018 game, but making it the lowest-rated Super Bowl in the measure since the 2009 game’s 42.1 rating. In the 18-49 demo, the Patriots-Rams clash averaged a 27.9 with 87.72 million viewers, down from last year’s 33.4 final rating with 103.39 million viewers.

EDIT: in final ratings, the Super Bowl was adjusted up to 31.0 rating in 18-49 demo and 98.19 million viewers.

However, as USA Today reports, the actual total ratings were over 100 million viewers when you add streaming.

USA and Australia have something in common…

2018 (2018-2019 for NFL) and 2008 were bad years for traditional sport ratings!

Superbowl, AFL GF and NRL GF all hit respective lows in both years.

Sunday’s Grammy Awards on CBS posted a 18-49 rating of 5.6, which is the all-time demo low. It pulled 19.9 million viewers, just higher than last year’s 19.8 million.