Little Big Shots was not a fluke. The second season of NBC’s surprise hit reality competition premiered on Sunday night, opening the network’s primetime block with a dominating 2.0 rating among adults 18-to-49 and 11.7 million viewers. It’s the kind of demo number rarely seen on Sundays, at least as far as broadcast is concerned, with the exception of sports and other live events.
Some will point to the fact that the show is down almost a full ratings point from its year-ago debut, but the retention is still quite remarkable. Another feather in NBC’s cap is the fact that it has won six consecutive nights of broadcast TV since ABC’s coverage of the Oscar awards last Sunday.
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All in all, it was an incredibly busy night for the Big Four. After Little Big Shots, NBC aired the time-slot debut of Dick Wolf’s Chicago Justice and the return of Jennifer Lopez vehicle Shades of Blue. The former brought a strong sampling earlier in the week, and its official bow marked a slight demo drop to a 1.4 rating. As for Shades of Blue, the drama earned a 1.0 rating.
CBS aired a new 60 Minutes (1.1 adults), NCIS: Los Angeles (1.2 adults), Madam Secretary (0.8 adults) and Elementary (0.6 adults) — all helping give the network solid No. 2 status for the night among adults 18-49.
ABC launched a new show on Sunday with Time After Time, the umpteenth time-travel series of this season, and it brought middling 0.7 and 0.6 demo ratings for its first two episodes. It also averaged only 2.5 million viewers. It’s the kind of numbers that have come to be expected from the network on the night. On the bright side, it followed the even return of Once Upon a Time (0.9 adults) and a winning outing of America’s Funniest Home Videos (1.0 adults).
If you can even believe it, Fox launched yet another time-travel show on Sunday. Making History opened with a comparatively stronger 0.9 rating among adults 18-49 and 2.2 million viewers. The network’s comedy block was all new, with Bob’s Burgers (0.8 adults), The Simpsons (1.1 adults), Family Guy (1.2 adults) and the return of The Last Man on Earth (1.0 adults) joining the lineup.
