“It’s Always Sunny in Philadephia” got off to a solid start with its first night on FX’s new offshoot network FXX.
The Season 9 premiere of “Always Sunny” Wednesday at 10 p.m. drew 757,000 total viewers. In the 18-49 demographic most important to advertisers, the comedy grabbed 648,000 viewers, which is 80 percent of what the Season 8 premiere drew on FX — an encouraging number, given that FX is carried in 26 million more homes than FXX is.
Also read: FX’s ‘Always Sunny’ Model: Low Costs, Total Freedom
The Season 5 premiere of “The League” at 10:30 also performed strongly, improving over its “Sunny” lead-in to draw 786,000 total viewers, with 687,000 of them in the 18-49 demographic — a 9 percent increase in the demo compared to the Season 4 average for “The League.”
“The numbers last night on FXX for ‘Sunny’ and ‘The League’ far exceeded our highest expectations,” said John Landgraf, CEO, FX Networks and FX Productions. “To have just launched the channel three days ago and get these ratings is thrilling. The delivery of these shows needs no qualification, they are proven appointment viewing for young adult audiences.”