The premiere of ABC’s feel-good reality series Secret Millionaire – which is actually a reboot of the show that aired on Fox –propelled the network to a Sunday ratings win.
Secret Millionaire – which has wealthy Americans going undercover to bestow a windfall on those less fortunate – won the 8 p.m. hour in the 18-49 demographic (3.3 rating) and among total viewers (12.6 million).
Secret Millionaire was up 32 percent from this season’s premiere of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It also decisively beat the unscripted competition on CBS and NBC.
CBS was second in the hour with Amazing Race: Unfinished Business (2.7, 9.7 million) followed by Fox animated comedies The Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers (2.5, 5.5 million from 8-9 p.m.). But a lackluster premiere for America’s Next Great Restaurant (1.6, 4.5 million) put NBC in fourth for the hour. And Restaurant was down 33 percent compared to the season premier of game show Minute to Win It in the same time period last year.
The two-hour premiere of Celebrity Apprentice (2.7, 7.9 million) improved on its meager Restaurant lead-in and won the 10 p.m. hour (3.0, 8.4 million) against CBS’ CSI: Miami (2.4, 10.6 million) and ABC’s Brothers & Sisters (2.2, 7.4 million). But Celebrity Apprentice was also down 16 percent compared to last season’s iteration for its lowest-rated spring premiere ever.
For the night, ABC averaged a 2.7 rating with 9.7 million viewers followed by CBS (2.4, 10.8 million), Fox (2.3, 5.0) and NBC (2.1, 6.4 million).
