‘Nashville’ Signs Off ABC With 10-Week High, ‘Wayward Pines’ Slow Burner In S2 Start
About 4.2 million viewers came to ABC last night to watch Nashville’s cliffhanger series-finale-but-maybe-not episode last night. It continued to come in No. 3 in its 10 PM time slot in both overall audience and in the demo (0.9/3) but said so long to ABC with its biggest crowd in 10 weeks. (Lionsgate TV is optimistic the series, while ending its four-season run on ABC, will find another home for a Season 5.)
It was NBC’s 9 PM Law & Order: SVU season finale (1.5/5, 7.1M) that dominated the night, both in the demo and in overall crowd. In its 17th-season wrap-up episode, L&O: SVU managed to grow its year-ago finale stats by 7% in 18-49 (1.5 vs. 1.4 on May 20, 2015) and 2% in total viewers (vs. 6.96M).
Among its berth-mates, Fox’s Wayward Pines opened its Season 2 (0.9/3, 3.1M) with No. 4 placement in the hour. On the bright side, the first season had started slow and saw a rise of 20% in the demo and 21% in total viewers in its second week, winding up its 10-episode run as the summer’s No. 1 scripted broadcast series among adults 18-49, and averaging a multi-platform audience of 9.4 million viewers for the season.
In its 10 PM hour, Nashville’s ABC swan-song played third fiddle to NBC’s hour-winning Chicago P.D. (1.4/5 6.9M), as well as the season finale of CBS’ Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (1.0, 5.2M).
CBS kicked off the night with a time slot winning The Price Is Right Primetime Special: The Amazing Race (1.2, 6.7M). Against the game show, the season finale of CW’s Arrow (0.8/3, 2.2M) came in steady compared to the previous week, but shy of last season’s wrapper (1.0, 2.8M).
While not winning an hour of primetime last night, ABC won its third consecutive May Sweep in adults 18-49 for the first time in more than 24 years, predating the start of Nielsen’s electronic database in September 1991. On average for the complete sweep in adults 18-49, ABC (1.3/5) beat CBS by 8% (1.2/4), NBC by 18% (1.1/4) and Fox by 44% (0.9/3).