TV Ratings: ‘Sleepy Hollow’ Opens Big on Fox, ‘Dancing’ Grows, ‘Dome’ Wraps Strong

The first real night of competition in the new fall season gives a victory to Fox’s Sleepy Hollow. The freshman drama, the first scripted premiere of the 2013-14 season, averaged a 3.5 rating among adults 18-49 and 10.1 million viewers. That final rating is up 133 percent from last fall’s comparable debut for the short-lived Mob Doctor and bests The Following (3.1 adults) as the highest-rated Fox drama of the last six years. Based on previous series’ performances, Fox is projecting the episode will deliver between a 5.1 and a 5.4 rating in Live+Seven DVR returns — a boost of up to 60 percent.

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Ahead of Sleepy Hollow, Bones returned to Fox in line with last fall. The veteran procedural averaged a 2.3 rating in the key demo, even with its most recent premiere. Sleepy Hollow, steady from its first to second half-hour, was up 55 percent from its lead-in. The network topped nightly averages with a preliminary 2.8 rating among adults 18-49 and 8.8 million viewers.

The return of Dancing With the Stars marked significant improvement for the ABC series. Now airing just once a week, in a two-hour format, Monday’s performance show averaged a 3.2 rating among adults 18-49 and 16.2 million viewers in Fast National returns. In the demo, that marks a 25 percent improvement from last fall’s premiere. ABC’s nightly average may be slightly skewed by the Pittsburgh affiliate airing Monday Night Football, but early returns have the network averaging a 2.6 adults rating and a dominant 13.4 million viewers. (The network aired a Castle encore at 10 p.m.)

After two hours of comedy encores, CBS wrapped the summer run of Under the Dome up a solid eight-tenths of a point. The series pulled a 2.8 rating with adults 18-49, winning 10 p.m. and scoring its best demo showing since July. CBS averaged a 1.7 adults rating and 7.2 million viewers.

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Increased competition in the 8 p.m. hour brought more bad news for NBC’s struggling Million Second Quiz. The game show averaged a 1.1 rating among adults 18-49, up from its Friday and Saturday showings but down six-tenths of a point from last Monday’s debut. American Ninja Warrior (1.6 adults) bested its lead-in considerably, down just a tenth of a point from last week, while the finale of Siberia (0.8 adults) grew by two-tenths. NBC, which aired Monday Night Football in Cincinnati, averaged a 1.2 rating among adults 18-49 and 3.4 million viewers.

The CW aired a new episode of Breaking Pointe (0.2 adults), even with last week. The network averaged a 0.2 adults rating and 602,000 viewers.

Over on the Spanish-speaking nets, Univision pulled a 1.2 adults rating and 3.2 million viewers, while Telemundo averaged a 0.5 rating with 18-49-ers and 1.2 million viewers.