TV Ratings: ‘Quantico’ Returns Down, ‘Dateline’ Hits 3-Year Sunday High

Absent the Academy Awards, there was another matchup between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on CNN last night and congressional hearings on Quantico (1.1/4). And, like all of Sunday’s shows, they were both hoping to connect with American voters – at least the ones between ages 18 and 49. Unfortunately for the Priyanka Chopra-staring ABC drama, it looks like Quantico came up short in that regard.

With a weak The Family (0.8/2) making its regular Sunday slot debut as a lead-in, Quantico was down 15% in the key demo from its last original December 13. In fast-affiliate numbers, that’s a low for the freshman FBI-set show, which didn’t have to face the NFL or the World Series as it did last fall. Quantico has proven a big delayed-viewing surger, so Live+3 and Live+7 numbers will likely bring some bounce to this sagging Live+Same Day result.

Also, in a case of ratings deju vu, the result for The Family was the same as the the final numbers snagged by the last episode of the canned Blood & Oil as the lead-in to Quantico on December 13, 2015. Compared to its March 3 preview debut, the Joan Allen-led thriller fell a hard 47% among adults 18-49.

Besides Quantico and the Downton Abbey series finale on PBS, there were a couple other returns to primetime last night, with The Last Man On Earth (1.1/3) back for part 2 of its second season and Once Upon A Time (1.3/4) back for the rest of its fifth season. For the Fox comedy, which was all about the return of Jason Sudeikis’ astronaut to a seemingly empty Earth, the ratings saw a 15% decline from its last original December 13. For the ABC series, it was even with its last new show of December 6 but down 41% from its Season 4 winter return of March 1 last year. With The Simpsons (1.3/4) dipping a tenth, the rest of Fox’s night saw Bob’s Burgers (1.1/4), Cooper Barrett’s Guide To Surviving Life (0.8/3) and Family Guy (1.3/4) even with their last originals of two weeks ago.

Overall, NBC and a NASCAR overrun on Fox were tied for the demo top spot Sunday with 1.2/4 rating. Second in the demo with a 1.1/3, CBS was No. 1 in viewership with 8.59 million watching. With 60 Minutes (1.3/5) unsurprisingly up — 62% in this case, after facing the Oscars last week — CBS had Madam Secretary (1.2/4) even with its last original February 21 while The Good Wife (0.9/3) and CSI: Cyber (0.8/3) were both down a tenth.

A two-hour The Voice (1.1/4) encore began NBC’s night. The network’s 9-11 PM Dateline (1.4/5) handed in its best Sunday demo result since January 6, 2013. Excluding the NASCAR overrun on Fox, the NBC news mag was also the night’s highest-rated show of the night. Compared to last week and Hollywood’s big night on ABC, last night’s Dateline was up 40% over its 7-8:30 PM edition February 28.