The heavily hyped musical episode lifted ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy (which was met with mixed responses by Twitter and critics) while the premiere of Howie Mandel’s Mobbed held on to enough of its American Idol lead-in for a strong start.
Grey’s averaged a 4.8 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 12.7 million viewers overall, up 30 percent week-to-week for an easy win in the 9 p.m. hour.
Fox was first for the night with an 8 p.m. American Idol results show (6.7, 22 million), up a tick in the demo and total viewers, and Mobbed (3.8, 10.8 million), which was the net’s most-watched post-Idol show in more than two years.
Grey’s didn’t significantly lift lead-out Private Practice (2.7, 7.6 million), which was edged in the 10 p.m. hour by CBS’ The Mentalist (2.8, 13.8 million), although the CBS drama was down 3 percent compared to its previous original on March 10. Meanwhile, CBS comedies The Big Bang Theory (3.6, 11.6 million) and Rules of Engagement (2.3, 8.1 million) hit season lows. Big Bang fell 5 percent and Rules plummeted 18 percent.
Univision again beat NBC, which barely showed a pulse with reruns of its all-comedy Thursday.
Univision averaged a 1.6 demo rating with 4.1 million viewers with telenovelas Eva Luna, Teresa and Triunfo Del Amor. NBC averaged a paltry 1.1 rating with 2.3 million viewers.
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