‘The Vampire Diaries’ Ratings Even In Final Return, ’20/20′ Beats Obama On NBC
Friday saw the beginning of the end with return of The Vampire Diaries (0.4/2) from the CW series’ Season 8 winter break. It also saw a trio tie for top rated show of the night for CBS’ Blue Bloods and ABC’s Last Man Standing and Shark Tank – all of whom snagged a 1.3/5 among adults 18-49.
Heading into its final eight- episodes with a visit to an anger management support group and a school field trip to where 100 witches were burned at the stake, the Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec developed series was even with its last original of December 9 last year. Season-to-season TVD was down a tenth from its Season 7 winter break of January 29, 2016. Lead-out Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (0.2/1) was the same as its January 6 show.
NBC ended their night with a 10 PM Dateline (0.7/3) special “Barack Obama: The Reality Of Hope” interview with the outgoing POTUS – though America didn’t offer much ratings hope. The Lester Holt hosted special sitdown with President Obama lost out to Blue Bloods and was easily topped by time slot rival 20/20 (1.1/4) by 57% among the 18-49s and 60% in the news demo of adults 25-54. Out of its regular 9 PM slot, the NBC news mag was also down 30% in the 18-49s from its last original of December 16 last year. Having said that, the Diane Sawyer fronted ABC news mag show was also down – 15% in the 18-49s from last week.
The earlier part of the Comcast-owned net’s night, which saw an NBA preemption in Portland, had Grimm (0.8/3) down a tenth from its final season debut last week. Lead-out and newbie Emerald City (0.8/3) held on to what Grimm delivered but fell 20% from its January 6 premiere.
ABC and CBS were even for the top rated net of the night with both grabbing a 1.2/5 and the House of Moonves taking the viewership top slot as usual with an audience of 9.20 million. As usual, a lot of that came from the fans of the Tom Selleck led NYPD family drama – which was the most watched show of a Friday with 10.34 million tuning in last night. Kicking off CBS’ night, MacGyver (1.1/4) was down a tenth from last week as was Hawaii Five-O (1.1/4), which saw regular Masi Oka exiting. Still, the 50th state set procedural was adjusted up a tenth for its January 6 show so we could see that again this week.
As for Blue Bloods, the drama was even with last week but had to share the top 18-49 spot of the night with Last Man Standing and Shark Tank – who were down two-tenths and a tenth from their season highs of last week. The 8:30 comedy Dr. Ken (0.9/4) was also down for the Disney-owned net with an 18% drop from its January 6 show.
The ratings direction was the opposite on Fox with Rosewood (0.7/3) up a tenth at 8 PM from last week. It was a somewhat good sleepy night for Sleepy Hollow (0.6/2) with the series staying the same as its Season 4 premiere of January 6.
With that, have a great MLK holiday!
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