So, there’s good news and bad news on the ratings front this morning from Nielsen.
With the consequences of the power outage that hit the data company’s main domestic facility in Florida over the weekend, still being dealt with, the bad news is there are still no results for Monday, Tuesday or last night.
The good news is we have numbers for March 12 and they look very good for NBC again – even with the first primetime of Daylight Saving. With Little Big Shots (1.7/6) leading the night as the highest rated among adults 18-49 and the most watched (9.97 million), the Comcast-owned net took the top spot in the key demo with a 1.1/4 rating. Yes, that’s down 15% from what NBC snagged on March 5 but it’s still a clear margin of victory over second place Fox and CBS with their 0.9/3 rating. The House of Moonves was number #1 in viewers on Sunday with 7.88 million tuning in – with 60 Minutes (1.1/4) pulling in 9.61 million as the net’s most watched show of the night.
Back on NBC, Little Big Shots was down 15% from its season debut of the week before. With that lead-in, the rest of the net’s night saw Chicago Justice (1.2/4) and week 2 of Season 2 of Jennifer Lopez’s Shades of Blue (0.9/3) drop 14% and 10% respectively.
As for ABC, the second week of newbie Time After Time (0.6/2) held even with its soft fast affiliates debut of March 5 – which went up a tenth in the final numbers. Following that, the Season 3 premiere of American Crime (0.5/2) saw the John Ridley anthology take a big drop of 58% in the demo from its Season 2 opener to hit a debut low.
To that, there should be some caveats as the American Crime Season 2 debuted on January 6, 2016, a Wednesday with the People’s Choice Awards on CBS and Chicago P.D. on NBC as competition. This season is the third move the hard hitting show has undergone in the schedule after starting out on Thursdays in Season 1 with Scandal as a lead-in on March 5, 2015.
The silver lining in the harsh live + same day results for the Season 3 opener of American Crime is that the show has a pretty solid digital afterlife. Season 2 of the show was, on average, up over its L+SD demo numbers by +56% in Live + 3 Day and by +78% in Live +7 Day. So, while ABC might have wished Nielsen were even more delayed in the fast affiliates for Sunday, bet that they are waiting impatiently for the DVR ratings on this one
In regards to those ongoing delays for the likes of The Bachelor Season 21 finale and the This Is Us Season 1 finale – well, that might be a while longer. Nielsen had no news today about when we will be seeing “Fast Affiliates and Fasties data for Monday March 13th through Wednesday March 15th.”
In language very reminiscent of the past few days of vague assurances that has left network execs frustrated and on edge in their yoga classes, a late night email from Nielsen on Wednesday didn’t offer anything concrete – again.
“Updates will be provided as release schedules for the outstanding data deliveries below are determined,” the data company said in their correspondence just before midnight last night. “We are running everything through additional vigorous checks to ensure the data meet our quality standards,” they added. “While the ability to collect data was not impacted by the power outage, the speed of our processing systems was, which is why it’s taken longer for us to provide estimates on data availability.”
Umm – OK, maybe by the weekend then?
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