“Joe Millionaire: For Richer or For Poorer” didn’t provide a wealth of viewers to Fox on Thursday. The series premiere also underwhelmed in ratings among adults 18-49.
Fox, which filled its entire primetime with the two-hour “Joe Millionaire” debut, tied ABC for third place in ratings. It was last among the Big 4 broadcast networks in total viewers.
Up higher, CBS and NBC tied for first place in primetime TV ratings last night. CBS was comfortably No. 1 in total viewers, and every one of its shows hit season highs per that Nielsen metric. That means hit freshman comedy “Ghosts” just reached a new series high.
How did CBS achieve that feat? Well, it certainly helped heaps that last night was the first of the fall TV season that did not feature a “Thursday Night Football” NFL game.
CBS and NBC tied first in ratings, both with a 0.5 in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic. CBS was first in total viewers with an average of 5.5 million, according to preliminary numbers. NBC was second in total viewers with 3.5 million.
For CBS, “Young Sheldon” at 8 p.m. earned a 0.7 rating and 7.2 million total viewers. At 8:30, “United States of Al” had a 0.5 rating and 5.3 million total viewers. “Ghosts” at 9 drew a 0.6 rating and 6.2 million total viewers. At 9:30, “B Positive” got a 0.4 rating and 4.8 million total viewers. “Bull” at 10 received a 0.4 rating and 4.6 million total viewers.
For NBC, “The Blacklist” at 8 had a 0.4 rating and 3.4 million total viewers. “Law & Order: SVU” at 9 landed a 0.6 rating and 4 million total viewers. “Law & Order: Organized Crime” at 10 got a 0.5 rating and 3.2 million total viewers.
ABC and Fox tied for third in ratings, both with a 0.4. ABC was third in total viewers with 2.9 million, Fox was fourth with 1.7 million.
For ABC, “Women of the Movement” from 8 to 10 had a 0.4 rating and 3 million total viewers. “Let the World See” at 10 got a 0.4 rating and 2.7 million total viewers. Both were coded as specials.
The CW was fifth in ratings with a 0.1 and in total viewers with 425,000, airing reruns.
We do not have early Nielsen numbers for Spanish-language broadcast networks Univision and Telemundo.