‘The Orville’ Premiere Ratings Rise In Live+3

The premiere of Fox’s The Orville, which aired last Sunday behind an NFL doubleheader, logged a 3.5 adults 18-49 rating in L+3, up 30% from its Live+Same Day delivery. The Live+3 total viewership for the opening episode of Seth MacFarlane’s space adventure series was 11.3 million, up from 8.6 million.

In Live+SD, The Orville premiere’s 18-49 delivery tied those of NBC’s drama This Is Us and Fox’s comedy The Mick, the highest-rated launches last season (excluding 24: Legacy, which followed the Super Bowl). With three days of playback, The Orville is running behind This Is Us (4.2) but matched the 3.5 for The Mick, which also launched behind an NFL doubleheader.

The Orville ranks as Fox’s highest-rated hourlong series launch since Empire in 2015 (5.3 in 18-49 L+3). In MacFarlane’s core men 18-34 demo, The Orville posted a 2.8 (L+3), also Fox’s highest-rated broadcast drama debut since Empire (3.1) in 2015.

The debut also was Fox’s most-streamed drama launch in three years, drawing 650,000 viewers across Fox Now and Hulu, behind Gotham‘s 865K in September 2014.

Created, executive produced and starring MacFarlane, The Orville is a live-action, one-hour space adventure series set 400 years in the future that follows the exploits of The U.S.S. Orville, a mid-level exploratory spaceship. Its crew, both human and alien, face the wonders and dangers of outer space, while also dealing with the problems of everyday life.

Adrianne Palicki stars as his wife, who’s assigned as his First Officer, along with Penny Johnson Jerald, Scott Grimes, Peter Macon, Halston Sage, J Lee, Chad L. Coleman and Norm Macdonald.