‘Empire’ Claims Victory For Fox In Wednesday Demo Ratings Battle

Returns of Empire and Star to Fox’s primetime lineup put Fox in first place on Wednesday night in the key demo.

Empire (2.0 demo rating, 6.14 million viewers) returned to the schedule with a demo rating up 5% compared to its fall finale (1.9 on Dec. 13) but 29% below its March 22, 2017 spring return episode’s 2.8.

Empire aired at 9 PM last season; Fox moved it to 8 to play lead-in for Star.

Empire and Star (1.5, 4.70M) both won their timeslots in the key 18-49 age bracket, to take the top two demo among scripted series for the night.

At 8 PM CBS’s Survivor: Ghost Island (1.7, 8.11M) beat NBC’s The Voice (1.3, 6.90M) clip job by more than 1M total viewers, and Empire by nearly 2M, becoming the most watched Wednesday show for a fifth week in a row. That said, Survivor matched a season low in the demo, and hit its season low in total viewers.

CBS finished first for the night in overall audience with assists from SEAL Team (1.9, 6.54M) and from Criminal Minds’ (1.1, 6.51M) boosted numbers.

NBC followed its Voice clip show with a 10 PM Andrew Lloyd Webber Tribute to a Superstar (0.6, 3.3M).

Zach Braff’s premiering ABC comedy Alex, Inc (1.1, 4.59M) performed respectably at 8:30 PM, retaining 79% of it’s the Goldbergs (1.4, 5.44M) lead-in. One week earlier, Speechless season finale retained 75%. In total viewers, Alex, Inc. retained 85% of its lead-in, versus Speechless last week’s 81%.

Following Alex, Inc., ABC inched up with Modern Family (1.4, 5.35M), then slid with Splitting Up Together repeat (0.8, 3.45M) and Designated Survivor (0.7, 3.84M).

CW’s Life Sentence may be on life support, scoring a 0.1 after clocking a 0.2 demo rating through its first three weeks. Total viewer-wise it fell to season low 424K. Season lows for its Riverdale leadin (0.3, 977K) did not help Life.

Fox (1.7, 5.42M) took the night in the demo while CBS (1.2, 7.05M) dominated in total viewers, with NBC in second place (1.1, 5.70M). ABC (1.0, 4.42M) and CW (0.2, 700K) followed.