TV viewers had no shortage of Bernies on Wednesday night. While CNN aired its latest Town Hall with Democrats Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, ABC kicked off its Bernie Madoff miniseries Madoff.
The dramatization of the disgraced Ponzi scheme fraudster’s rise and fall aired the first two hours of its four-hour run, averaging a 1.2 rating among adults 18-49 and 7 million viewers. Compared to FX’s not entirely dissimilar O.J. Simpson miniseries that launched the night before, Madoff brought a bigger same-day audience but skewed much older. ABC paired it with American Crime (0.8 adults) at 10 o’clock.
Fox led the night with American Idol, which averaged a steady 2.3 rating among adults 18-49, and Hell’s Kitchen (1.5 adults).
On either side of a Criminal Minds repeat, CBS had new episodes of Two Broke Girls (1.5 adults), Mike & Molly (1.6 adults) and Code Black (1.2 adults).
NBC had steady episodes of The Mysteries of Laura (1.1 adults) and Law & Order: SVU (1.8 adults) ahead of a boosted Chicago Fire, up two-tenths of a point to a 1.7 rating among adults 18-49.
Arrow took a small dip on The CW, pulling a 0.9 rating in the key demo prior to a flat Supernatural (0.7 adults).
