Ratings Roundup for the Week of September 15, 2024

Welcome to the 2024-25 network television season. Ratings Roundup is back for another year, with a few changes. 

Historically, the week following the Emmy Awards was known as "Premiere Week". That was the week that networks premiered most of their fall shows. Thanks to the strikes last year, networks made several adjustments, one of which was that "premiere week" no longer exists. The week following the Emmy Awards is still the traditional beginning of the fall television season, however, networks now scatter their premieres over several weeks, and most networks will not have their full fall schedules in place until mid-October. 

There have also been a few changes to the publishing schedule for this weekly rating report. Fast overnights are no longer published online. Instead, only the final overnights are posted. This means there is an extra delay in getting ratings numbers. For most of the week, this isn't a problem, however, Friday and Saturday numbers don't post until the following Monday and Tuesday, respectively. With this change in mind, Ratings Roundup articles will now be published on Tuesday instead of Monday morning in order to include the Friday ratings. This also means that the Saturday numbers will not be included for the time being. Since Saturday programming is either repeats or sports, in other words, not programming that will affect any decision-making on the future of scripted shows, delaying publication until the following Wednesday or possibly Thursday to include them did not seem necessary. 

So how did the first week of the fall television season do? Let's find out. 

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ABC opened the season with a few premieres last week. High Potential opened with decent numbers. The test will be if the show holds that audience when the rest of the network's scripted dramas start. The Golden Bachelorette opened much lower than The Golden Bachelor last season. Dancing with the Stars opened up a bit over its premiere last fall. Freshman gameshow Lucky 13 closed out its first season with middling numbers. The summer series will likely be back. 
 

CBS had two premieres last week. Venerable 60 Minutes opened with high numbers thanks to an NFL overrun. Survivor opened down four hundred thousand viewers from its premiere last season. CBS will premiere its fall schedule in mid-October. Until then, most of its programming will consist of repeats. 
 

NBC enjoyed the return of NFL football to its schedule while the rest of its schedule was mostly repeats. The Peacock Network is not planning to premiere its fall schedule for another couple of weeks. 

FOX wrapped two of its summer shows last week. MasterChef and Beat Shazam were both down a few tens of thousands of viewers for their finales from the previous week. Freshman animated series Universal Basic Guys dropped without a ratings assist from the NFL. Time will tell if it holds up against the regular Sunday animated shows. 

CW ran a schedule of mostly repeats and imports last week. All American: Homecoming was even with the previous week's numbers. The spinoff series was cancelled this summer and will end with the conclusion of its current season. Totally Funny Kids and Totally Funny Animals were both down from the previous week. 

That's week one in the books. What new fall shows are you looking forward to this season?