Thursday was a night of romance, fatal revelations and some very intense basketball on the small screen as ESPN scored with the NBA Playoffs.
Giving California a good name again, the Golden State Warriors’ 115-104 win over the Utah Jazz in Game 2 of their series snagged a 3.5 metered market rating for the Disney-owned sports giant in what was the second game of the night. That’s the best that any playoff game this year has done for ESPN. Add to that gold star, the 3.1 MM result that the Washington Wizards dominating 116-89 victory over the Boston Celtics snared for ESPN’s first playoff game of last night, an 11% increase over the comparable match-up in 2016.
Over on the Big 4, the big show of the night was once again The Big Bang Theory (2.4/11), which was even with its series low fast affiliate of last week. Yet, that April 27 18-49 number went up two tenths in the finals so we may see some sort of adjustment repeat this week. And, as you begin your Cinco de Mayo celebrations today, remember that the CBS sitcom from WBTV was the top rated and most watched (11.88 million) show of the night and the House of Mooves was number #1 with a 1.4/6 and 7.10 million tuning in overall.
In fact, overall, CBS’ night was an improvement over last week with Mom (1.5/6), Life In Pieces (1.2/5) and The Amazing Race (0.9/4) rising two tenths, a tenth and two tenths respectively.
With its big reveal of who killed Jason Blossom, Thursday’s Riverdale (0.4/2) also was up a tenth for the CW. The Archie Comics-based series’ lead-in Supernatural (0.5/2) stayed the same as last week. Fox’s only original of the night was 8 PM’s MasterChef Junior (0.9/3), which cooked up a 29% key demo rise over its April 27 show’s fast affiliate – which went up a tenth in adjusted numbers.
Riverdale’s finale is next week but NBC’s Superstore (0.8/3) closed out its second season at 8: 30 PM last night with a long awaited kiss. Unfortunately, that was a bit anti-climatic ratingswise as the comedy stayed the same as last week’s season low. Even looks pretty good when you put last night’s Superstore next to the show’s Season 1 finale of February 22, 2016. Last night’s show was down a hard 43% from that Monday night 8 PM airing S1 ender.
The Comcast-owned net saw Chicago Med go up a tenth (1.1/4) and The Blacklist (0.8/3) stay the same as its April 27 effort.
On ABC’s TGIT line-up, Grey’s Anatomy (1.7/7), Scandal (1.3/5) and The Catch (0.6/2) were pretty steady. The medical drama matched its April 27 fast affiliates, which rose a tenth later. The DC drama was down a tenth and The Catch was the same as its adjusted down final number of last week.
And again, have a happy Cinco de Mayo.