Through three nights, the “Roots” miniseries remake is averaging a solid 4.9 million total viewers. There’s been some individual up and downs, however, as Night 2 saw a double-digit slide before Night 3 recovered roughly a third of that.
Episode 2 of the rebooted classic drew 4.6 million total viewers; the following evening’s Episode 3 had 4.8 million. The Memorial Day premiere had scored 5.3 million overall audience members — so it’s been pretty stable.
Not perfectly flat, however. That Night 1 to Night 2 drop computes to a 13.4 percent decline. Night 2 to Night 3 was a 4.3 percent increase. Both of those evenings’ TV ratings were just released today, due to the Monday holiday causing slight delays.
For some real fun (but admittedly totally unfair) comparisons, check out what ABC’s original “Roots” in 1977 did here, also per Nielsen. Pretty crazy, right? Those we very different times.
This new “Roots” has been simulcasted across History, Lifetime, A&E, and LMN. It stars Forest Whitaker, Anna Paquin, Laurence Fishburne, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Anika Noni Rose, Tip “T.I.” Harris, Chad L. Coleman, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Matthew Goode, Derek Luke, Mekhi Phifer, James Purefoy, Erica Tazel, Regé-Jean Page and Malachi Kirby.
The powerful “Roots” concludes tonight at 9/8c on those same four channels.