America's Got Talent tried to win a night for NBC with Justin Bieber headlining its star-studded finale, but with two premieres on the night—The X Factor's Thursday edition and the return of Glee—Fox won the evening pretty easily against a grid that's still mostly reruns as the rest of the networks save their shows for the back end of September. This is good news for now, but Fox has a lot of worrying to do when the new shows arrive. Let's discuss!
We judge shows by two factors: the total number of viewers (in millions) who watched the show either LIVE or on DVR within the same day, as well as the percentage of viewers in the incredibly crucial 18-49 year old demographic (so 1% of viewers aged 18-49 tuning in is expressed as a 1.0 demo rating). Despite the millions, a show that can nail the core demo stands an even better shot at renewal.
Good news for Glee? Well… yes, and no. The good news is that Glee still won the entire night in the 18-49 demo with a 3.3, which isn't mind-blowing but certainly solid enough. The very good news is that it actually wound up beating lead-in The X Factor in the demo, as the Britney-fueled second night earned only a 3.1 (though viewer to viewer, X Factor brought in 8.2 million with Glee inching to 8.1). The bad news is that it's alarmingly down from last season's premiere, which landed a 4.0 in the demo with 9.2 million viewers. To call this bad news is an understatement: last year, the show only scored above a 3.3 four times last season (settling mostly in the mid-to-low 2 range), and to start this low can't be good.
So is FOX safe on Thursdays? Not at all. See, the real Thursday players haven't even shown up yet: Glee will face major competition from ABC's Grey's Anatomy for the exact same audience at 9pm (head-to-head, Grey's season average demo was a 3.5 to Glee's 3.1), while The X Factor will suffer at the hands of CBS' The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men at 8. All three of these are absolute demo killers, and FOX's fare starting this low without serious competition doesn't bode well for their futures.
How'd everything else do? NBC's America's Got Talent managed to win the whole night in total viewers with 10.5 million people, even if its demo (2.4) fell behind X Factor and Glee. A new Big Brother scored a 2.0 with 5.7 million viewers.
Ratings (18-49 demo/total live and same-day viewers)
#1 – FOX (3.2)
The X Factor timeslot premiere (3.1/8.2 million)
Glee season premiere (3.3/8.1 million) (recap)
#2 – NBC (2.0)
America's Got Talent season finale (2.4/10.5 million)
Rock Center with Brian Williams (1.4/6.0 million)
#3 – CBS (1.6)
The Big Bang Theory rerun (1.9/6.8 million)
Two and a Half Men rerun (1.5/5.4 million)
Big Brother (2.0/5.8 million)
Person of Interest rerun (1.1/5.5 million)
#4 – ABC (0.8)
Wipeout (1.1/3.6 million)
Grey's Anatomy rerun (0.7/2.6 million)
Scandal rerun (0.6/2.5 million)
#5 – The CW (0.3)
The Vampire Diaries rerun (0.4/1.0 million)
The Next (0.2/706,000)
Thoughts on the numbers? Comment below!
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[TV By The Numbers]
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