Final Nationals are in for Game 1 of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals and FOX is feeling pleased with the results.
Final figures are also in the rest of Wednesday (October 23) night’s ratings, including some slightly discouraging figures for “The Tomorrow People,” the disappearance of this morning’s “Super Fun Night” bump and more.
Click through for the full numbers…
*** We’ll start with the World Series, where FOX was reminded what a difference it makes to have two teams with national fanbases, rather squads with mostly regional support. Game 1 averaged 14.4 million viewers, up 18 percent over Game 1 from last year, between the Tigers and Giants. The game averaged a 4.2 rating among adults 18-49, up 17 percent over last year’s opener. Surprisingly, even though the Red Sox cruised to victory and had an insurmountable lead by the end of the second inning, Game 1 hit its ratings peak with 16.3 million viewers in the 9:30 ET half-hour. Unsurprisingly, the game had its best ratings in Boston with a 39.7 rating/61 share, followed by St. Louis with a 36.0/54. Equally unsurprisingly, this was Boston’s top-rated world series telecast since Game 7 of the 2008 ALCS. Finally, FOX is eager to tout the social media activity from the game, which drew 793,000 tweets, up by six percent over last year’s Game 1. [Why does a six percent Twitter bump year-to-year not seem especially impressive to me? Might this be where the lopsided result hindered the game? Dunno.]
*** I’ve said a couple times now that The CW surely has been hoping it would have the opportunity to give full season orders simultaneously to several of its new shows. Otherwise, I really can’t figure why “The Originals” hasn’t just gotten its back-nine, especially after drawing 2.23 million viewers and doing a 0.9 rating among adults 18-49 in its most recent airing. Doing that without a lead-in? On The CW? That’s easy. “Tomorrow People” seemed like a no-brainer after last week as well, but the drop from “Arrow” this week may have given the network slight pause. “Arrow” slipped week-to-week with 2.89 million viewers and a 0.9 key demo rating, while “Tomorrow People” slipped from that to 1.92 million viewers and a 0.7 key demo rating. Now the 0.7 was up 0.1 from Fast Nationals, which looks a bit less damaging, but I direct you to The CW’s target demo with viewers 18-34, where “Arrow” did a 0.8 rating among both men and women, while “Tomorrow People” did a 0.4 rating with both men and women. That’s a steep drop. It’s not quite a “Vampire Diaries”/”Reign” level of incompatibility (I’m already looking forward to the numbers from tonight), but it’s not pretty. In contrast, “The Originals” equalled “Supernatural” both among women 18-34 and women 18-49 and beat “Supernatural” among women 25-54. Most of the “Supernatural” advantages over “The Originals” come from male demos and The CW has only tepid interest in dudes.
*** Marg Helgenberger returned! Jason Priestley guest starred! And CBS gave “CSI” a big wave of promotional support to celebrate its 300th episode. The result? A gain of 0.1 among adults 18-49 and and a bump of a million viewers to a 2.1 rating and 10.45 million viewers. Yawn.
*** A couple ratings observers got a smidge excited this morning when it looked like “Super Fun Night” had achieved the Holy Grail for new shows in the early-season by posting small growth. Instead, “Super Fun Night” fell very slightly from last week with 5.79 million and was flat with a 2.1 rating among adults 18-49. That beats dropping, but it’s not a bump. Only ABC knows if they’ve been considering a post-“Modern Family” audition for “Trophy Wife” or “The Goldbergs,” which I continue to think would make sense.
*** By bumping up to a 2.4 rating among adults 18-49 in Finals, “Survivor” avoided setting a series low, while “Revolution” stayed steady with a 1.4 key demo rating, tying its series low, but not going below. “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” had a season low 1.4 key demo rating, but apparently that avoided being a series low. And “Ironside” ended its run with a 0.8 key demo rating, tying with a couple things for the second lowest original on the four networks this season. [“Lucky 7” did a 0.7 key demo rating in its final airing.]
*** I didn’t do analysis for yesterday, but it’s slightly notable that “Person of Interest” ticked up in Finals to 13.17 million and a 2.2 key demo rating. Coming out of 14.92 million and a 2.5 key demo rating for “NCIS: Los Angeles,” that looks OK. “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” ended up with 7.39 million viewers and a 2.7 key demo rating in Nationals, if you like to file that sort of information away.
I assume I’ll do analysis again on Saturday when I can talk about whatever goes down tonight, as well as the opening night results for “Grimm” and “Dracula” on NBC.