Ratings: ABC’s ‘Celebrity Family Feud,’ ‘Battlebots’ Score in Debuts
ABC effectively used promotion during its highly rated NBA Finals to launch two series with pre-branded recognition — “Celebrity Family Feud” and “Battlebots” — to winning numbers on Sunday, a night that also saw Fox fare well with its final-round coverage of golf’s U.S. Open.
According to preliminary national estimates from Nielsen, a repeat of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (0.8 rating/4 share in adults 18-49, 4.0 million viewers overall) was followed on ABC by the premiere of the Steve Harvey-hosted “Celebrity Family Feud” (2.4/10 in 18-49, 8.5 million viewers overall), which garnered the night’s top demo score and outperformed the last 13 episodes of “Once Upon a Time” to air on the network in the Sunday-at-8 timeslot during the regular season. It also more than doubled the season premiere of “Wipeout” in the hour a year ago (1.0 in 18-49).
Though technically not a series premiere, “Feud” — a spinoff of the popular daytime program also hosted by Harvey — delivered the top debut rating in 18-49 for any series since Fox’s “Last Man on Earth” on March 1 (also a 2.4). And no summer series has opened better since CBS’ “Under the Dome” two years ago.
“Celebrity Family Feud” originally aired in the summer of 2008 on NBC. ABC aired the original daytime version of the game, hosted by Richard Dawson, which ended 30 years ago (June 1985). Last night’s “Feud” pitted the families of Anthony Anderson against Toni Braxton, and Monica Potter against Curtis Stone.
“Celebrity Family Feud” was followed at 9 p.m. by the premiere of “Battlebots” (1.9/7 in 18-49, 5.4 million viewers overall), a series that aired for a few years on Comedy Central more than a decade ago. It fared 27% (0.4) better than the 9 p.m. series premiere of music competition series “Rising Star” on the comparable night a year ago.
“Battlebots” skewed much more male than typical ABC programs, with roughly 57% of its 18-49 audience male. “Celebrity Family Feud’s” young-adult viewership was about 40% male.
Elsewhere, the U.S. Open on Fox averaged a 1.7 rating/7 share in adults 18-49 and 7.9 million viewers overall on Fox’s stations from 7 to 10:30 p.m., with these numbers subject to revision in the nationals due to the live nature of sports. Fox won the night in both demos and total viewers.
NBC was all original on the night but didn’t generate much heat with “Dateline” (0.6/3 in 18-49, 3.2 million viewers overall), spinoff series “Dateline: My Kid Would Never Do That” (0.7/3 in 18-49, 3.3 million viewers overall) and dramas “A.D. The Bible Continues” (0.7/2 in 18-49, 3.5 million viewers overall) and “American Odyssey” (0.4/2 in 18-49, 2.2 million viewers overall).
CBS aired “60 Minutes” (0.6/3 in 18-49, 5.9 million viewers overall), followed by encores of “Madam Secretary” (0.4/2 in 18-49, 3.7 million viewers overall), “The Good Wife” (0.4/1 in 18-49, 3.0 million viewers overall) and “CSI” (0.6/2 in 18-49, 4.2 million viewers overall).
Ratings for the night’s notable cable premieres, including the second-season openers for both TNT’s “The Last Ship” and HBO’s “True Detective,” will be released tomorrow by Nielsen.
1.
Celebrity Family Feud
(8:00 ABC)
8.5 Million Viewers
2.4/10
2.
Battlebots
(9:00 ABC)
5.4 Million Viewers
1.9/7
3.
U.S. Open
(7:00 Fox)
7.9 Million Viewers
1.7/7
4.
America’s Funniest Home Videos-r
(7:00 ABC)
4.0 Million Viewers
0.8/4
5.
A.D. The Bible Continues
(9:00 NBC)
3.5 Million Viewers
0.7/2
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