By: Amanda Anderson-Niles
With the surge of new shows being led by black actors is beginning to make its way to most major networks, many were excited to learn about Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard’s new show “Empire.” While FOX may have a bona-fide hit with the new series, ABC’s new black comedy “black-ish” may be suffering from FOX’s new show.
Now that ratings are in from last night, “Empire” had a strong start while “Black-ish” is losing viewers.
TV by the Numbers writes:
On FOX, the season premiere of American Idol earned a 3.1 3.2 adults 18-49 rating, down 34 32 percent from a 4.7 for last year’s premiere. The series premiere of Empire scored a 3.7, 3.8 up 118 124 percent from a 1.7 adults 18-49 for last year’s Rake premiere. Empire ranked as FOX’s highest rated series premiere in 3 years among adults 18-49 (since Touch in January 2012) and FOX’s highest rated drama premiere in 6 years (since Lie To Me in January 2009). It was the second highest rated drama premiere this season behind ABC’s How To Get Away With Murder. Your predictions were accurate, and my poll choices were not optimistic enough.
On ABC, The Middle earned a season high 2.3, up 5 percent from a 2.2 adults 18-49 rating for its most recent original episode. The Goldbergs scored a season high 2.5, up 14 percent from a 2.2 adults 18-49 rating for its most recent original episode. Modern Family garnered a 3.2, up 3 percent from a 3.1 adults 18-49 rating for its most recent original episode. black-ish tied its series low with a 2.1, down 9 percent from a 2.3 adults 18-49 rating for its most recent original episode.
Damn shame. FOX is trying to make us choose.
They always want us to choose. Smh.
I will support both and have two TV’s on from now on.
That’s what I think I’m going to do.
Good idea @CiCi. +1
I have Empire on my DVR I can’t wait to watch it everybody keeps saying it’s good. And I love Black-ish I hope the ratings pick back up.
I told y’all this was a concern for me. Fox made sure to put the show in that time slot to knock out Blackish. We shouldn’t have to pick one over the other when we don’t have a lot of black shows on the air as it is besides reality shows. I’m very worried about Blackish.
I think the hiatus is really what hurt blackish. People didn’t know it was coming back last night. Ratings should improve next week.
I can agree a little bit with this because I definitely didn’t know it was coming back on until the comments on the Empire post yesterday. So, I’d hope to see an increase in ratings next week because the episode was hilarious as usual.
Empire was off the chain. ABC won’t cancel blackish because it will pick back up next week. It’s a very funny show. I watched it live and caught Empire on DVR.
I knew this would happen. The good news is I’m pretty sure ratings will go back up. A lot of people didn’t know Black-ish was coming back on last night.