Fox nabbed its first nightly victory in a while thanks to the return of Empire.
The series, coming off a three-month hiatus that saw This Is Us pass it to become the top drama on broadcast, was unmoved in its midseason opener. It averaged a 2.8 rating among adults 18-49 and 7.9 million viewers. Both of those numbers marked incremental improvement from December.
Season to date, Empire has averaged a 4.6 rating among adults 18-49 and 12.5 million viewers once live-plus-seven ratings are factored in, though multiplatform views have it even higher.
In the hour before Empire, Fox launched event series Shots Fired to a not-too-shabby 1.1 rating among adults 18-49 and 4.7 million viewers. Its performance isn’t as good as Lethal Weapon‘s 8 p.m. numbers, but it’s an improvement from the Big Four drama premieres of this midseason.
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No. 2 status for the night went to CBS. Against ABC comedy repeats, Survivor (1.7 adults) and Criminal Minds (1.3 adults) were even before a dipping Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (0.8 adults). ABC’s lone original offering of the night was a new Designated Survivor, which only managed a 1.1 rating among adults 18-49.
Blindspot (0.9 adults), Law & Order: SVU (1.1 adults) and Chicago P.D. (1.2 adults) rounded out the night for NBC. Chicago took an especially steep spill, coming off its last original in a crossover special.
