American Idol is back on ABC, ringing in its milestone 20th season with a primetime ratings win.
Per fast affiliates, the long-running singing competition series was the highest-rated program of Sunday evening, measuring a 0.9 rating in the 18-49 demo and 6.02 million viewers with its two-hour debut. Judges Katy Perry, Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie returned alongside host Ryan Seacrest to usher in the new generation of prospective idols.
While American Idol led the charge on Sunday, the ABC premiere was down from the previous year. The American Idol Season 19 debut brought in a 1.1 demo rating and 6.69 million viewers back in February 2021.
In the preceding hour, a repeat of The Simpsons (0.7, 4.22M) nabbed the evening’s second-highest demo rating, but the latest installment of 60 Minutes on CBS took home Sunday’s largest audience. 60 Minutes (0.6, 8.12M) covered Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, newsroom closures and more. The CBS news program tied with America’s Funniest Home Videos (0.6, 4.86M) in the demo and bested a repeat of America’s Got Talent: Extreme on NBC.
In the 8 p.m. hour, The Equalizer (0.5, 6.95M) returned to CBS and a new episode of The Simpsons (0.4, 1.39M) ticked down. Fox’s other animated titles, The Great North (0.3, 0.94M), Bob’s Burgers (0.4, 1.16M) and Family Guy (0.4, 1.22M) also fell.
CBS won the remaining hours of primetime with NCIS: Los Angeles (0.5, 5.38M) and S.W.A.T. (0.4, 3.62M). ABC’s The Rookie (0.4, 3.54M) got a nice bump from American Idol.
Monday primetime will see new episodes of nearly all regularly scheduled programming including ABC’s The Bachelor, Fox’s 9-1-1: Lone Star and CBS’ NCIS.
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