Ratings: ’20/20′ beats ‘Shark Tank’; ‘The Amazing Race,’ ‘Grimm,’ ‘Vampire Diaries’ rise

It’s not often that we talk about a newsmagazine winning a ratings battle, but that’s precisely what we ended up having on Friday night as “20/20” managed to surge to the top of the ratings leaderboard on Friday. It drew an impressive 1.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic, and that was enough to topple the frequent Friday champ in “Shark Tank,” which posted a 1.2.

While we’re not going to dog on “Shark Tank” for its rating given how incredible a run it has had over the years, we will say this: We still remember when the show was getting close to 2.0 ratings on a fairly regular basis. This is still a great resource for entrepreneurs looking to make their dreams come true, but this is far from the mega-hit that it once was for ABC.

As for some other ratings news on the day…

The good news – It was a night of recovery for “The Amazing Race” (1.0) and “The Vampire Diaries” (0.5), as the two shows each improved on recent outings. This seems to be their ceiling on Friday night, which isn’t necessarily great but good enough apparently to get each one of them renewed.

Also, applause to fans of “Grimm” who responded to news of a shortened season 6 order by watching last night live, and allowing its rating to improve to a 0.9.

The bad news – There really isn’t too much to be negative about today. “Last Man Standing” (1.0) and “Dr. Ken” (0.9) each dropped slightly, and “Hawaii Five-0” (1.1) was roughly at the same number that it was the week before.

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