Thursday night ratings:
CBS’s “Ghosts” is the story. A not great sitcom that has somehow picked up steam at 9pm off the success of viewers tuned into “Young Sheldon” at 8pm. Those viewers dip with “United States of Al” at 8:30pm– one of those shows you can’t believe is on TV– and they come roaring back at 9pm. Go figure.
Last night, “Young Sheldon” scored a 7.7 million, “Al” dropped down to 5.5, and then “Ghosts” came back with 6.5 million. Compare those numbers to ABC’s wan comedy group on Wednesday nights, where 3 million is the average.
Among scripted dramas, “SVU” is the king. The “Law & Order” show benefited last night also from the absence of competitor “Grey’s Anatomy.” The latter show was on hiatus for COVID, which is ironic since last year all they did in the show was battle COVID. (I guess the hospital setting isn’t real after all.) “SVU did a very nice 4.2 million last night with a .66 in the key demo. This is why they’ll get to Season 25 no problem.
NBC, stuck because of the “Manifest” debacle, doesn’t know what to do at 8pm, so they run “Blacklist,” also a show only watched by pets and coma patients. Remember the days when you’d get at least two good comedies at 8pm-9pm on NBC Thursdays?
No one at Dick Wolf or NBC seems to get that “SVU” success doesn’t translate into “Organized Crime” numbers. The second show dropped by a million viewers at 10pm. “Organized Crime” is impenetrable. Chris Meloni is fine, but there’s no show, just a lot of whining about Stabler’s dead wife, and Dylan McDermott as Sinatra Jr. If they would just develop a “Law & Order” show out of it, the numbers might rise.
