Ratings: ‘The Bachelorette’ Can’t Catch a Break

Poor Clare Crawley. Last week, the coronavirus-delayed debut of Crawley’s season of “The Bachelorette” faced a freak Tuesday night NFL football game, a make-up contest also caused by COVID-19. Last night, the ABC dating competition faced off with Game 1 of the 2020 World Series on Fox. Fortunately, there isn’t what we would call an enormous amount of crossover between professional sports audiences and those who watch “The Bachelorette,” but there are only so many TVs to go around. Also fortunate for ABC (and for NBC, which aired “The Voice”), Dodgers-Rays Game 1 appears to be on pace to post a new all-time-low audience for a World Series opening game — and possibly for any Fall Classic contest on record.

Fox was first in ratings with a 1.8 rating/11 share in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic and in total viewers with an average of 7.2 million, according to preliminary numbers. Those Nielsen numbers were put up by the Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays’ first game of the 2020 World Series, which aired throughout primetime.

NBC and ABC tied for second in ratings, both with a 0.9/5. NBC was second in total viewers with 6.4 million, ABC was fourth with 3.3 million.

For NBC, “The Voice” at 8 scored a 1.0/6 and 7.5 million viewers. At 10, “Transplant” received a 0.6/4 and 4.3 million viewers. For ABC, “The Bachelorette” at 8 earned a 1.1/6 and 4.1 million viewers. A repeat followed at 10. CBS was fourth in ratings with a 0.4/2 and third in total viewers with 3.6 million. Following back-t0-back drama encores, “The FBI Declassified” at 10 had a 0.4/2 and 2.9 million viewers. Univision and Telemundo tied for fifth in ratings, each with a 0.3/2. Univision was fifth in total viewers with 1.1 million, Telemundo was sixth with 931,000. The CW was seventh in ratings with a 0.1/1 and in viewers with 551,000. At 8, “Swamp Thing” settled for a 0.1/1 and 723,000 viewers. At 9, “Tell Me a Story” managed a 0.1/0 and 379,000.