Zoo season 3 ratings rise; The Night Shift season 4 even
The latest new episode from CBS drew in total a 0.6 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which is an improvement from the ratings finals from last week. However, there wasn’t any forward movement in terms of total viewers, and it’s also not great that the show lost a good 67% of its lead-in with Big Brother airing its eviction show beforehand. (That show won the night with a 1.9.)
The Zoo ratings are disappointing even with the improvement given that the show is so entertaining, but there are still reasons to have hope. For one, like many other CBS summer shows this is the beneficiary of a lucrative streaming deal, one that helps it to get funding from other avenues beyond just linear advertising. It’s also a strong performer in DVR viewership — or at least it has over the years. As much fun as Zoo is, it’s not the sort of programming that is considered appointment viewing.
Hopefully, there are still some viewers who are still realizing that the show is on the air. With that, let’s hope to see things around a 0.7 or a 0.8 by the end of the season. It’s only then that we’ll start to have more confidence that it comes back for another season.
Good news for The Night Shift
While a 0.7 rating is far from great, at least last night’s episode was even with the week before. It also tied for #1 in its timeslot with The Gong Show (down from last week) and won the timeslot in total viewers. With The Night Shift, it needs these live+same-day ratings even more than Zoo does, given that it doesn’t have the same sort of arrangement with a streaming provider and it’s not an in-house production for NBC. That’s one of the reasons why renewing it year after year is such a struggle and we’re left waiting for so long.
Other news
ABC’s Battle of the Network Stars did not shine as bright in week two, falling down to a 0.7 rating. That seems about right, given that the premiere didn’t do enough to shine beyond the “star” power that it brought to the table. It probably needed to be even sillier and a little more high-production, since the entire episode felt like the majority of the budget was just spent convincing famous people to take part in it.
Elsewhere, many other game shows were down, including Hollywood Game Night (0.8) and The Wall (0.9). Granted, we don’t expect a whole lot more than this for summer programming that doesn’t cost a whole lot to make.
Want some other coverage of Zoo?
Last night, we published our full review of the episode over at the link here! Be sure to check that out, and remember that there will be plenty more coming in the days ahead. (Photo: CBS.)