Fast National ratings for Thursday, May 24, 2012.
“America’s Got Talent” carried NBC to a Tuesday night ratings win among younger viewers, while “NCIS” franchise reruns helped CBS squeak out a win among total viewers, and the finales of ABC’s “Cougar Town” and the CW’s “The L.A. Complex” got slight bumps from recent troubles.
For the night, NBC averaged a 2.3 rating among adults 18-49, and 7.5 million viewers overall. CBS did a 1.4 in the demo and 7.6 million viewers overall, followed by ABC (1.3, 5.7 million), FOX (1.0, 2.3 million) and the CW (0.3, 810,000).
8 p.m. — A repeat of “Got Talent” averaged a 2.0 rating and 7.2 million viewers overall for NBC, while an “NCIS” repeat got a 1.4 and 10 million viewers. The one-hour “Cougar Town” finale – the last new episode to air on ABC, before the series moves to TBS next year – was third with a 1.2 demo rating and 3.5 million viewers, both up slightly from the last time the show aired two weeks ago. FOX went with a night of “New Girl” repeats and was rewarded in the first hour with a 1.0 and 2.3 million viewers, while the CW’s new reality show “The Catalina” debuted to a 0.3 rating and 994,000 viewers.
9 p.m. — Without original-recipe “NCIS” in the way, “Got Talent” shot up to a 3.7 rating and 11.3 million viewers, followed by CBS’ “NCIS: LA” rerun (1.3, 6.8 million), ABC’s “20/20” special on Queen Elizabeth (1.2, 6.1 million), more “New Girl” on FOX (1.0, 2.2 million) and the end of “The L.A. Complex” season 1 on the CW (0.3, 627,000 viewers). The CW still hasn’t committed to whether it will air the second season of the Canadian drama this summer, but jumping nearly 200,000 viewers from last week’s airing certainly doesn’t hurt its case, even if its ratings have been historically low for American broadcast television.
10 p.m. — With “Got Talent” done for the night, the second half of the “20/20” special (1.5, 7.6 million) crept into the top spot for the hour, followed by a “48 Hours Mystery” on CBS (1.4, 6 million) and a “Grimm” repeat on NBC (1.3, 3.8 million).
All ratings information comes from preliminary Fast National Nielsen data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are subject to change.