Ratings: NBC’s ‘Community’ up, ‘Hannibal’ up; ‘Beauty and the Beast’ steady

In some ways, Thursday night’s ratings are actually more interesting than usual thanks to some repeats. Why? CBS decided that they were going to experiment with expanding their comedy block to two hours, which is something that they have been rumored to be interested in doing for the fall season. How did it work? As it turns out, pretty well.

A repeat of “The Big Bang Theory” at 9:00 p.m. got a higher ratings in the 18-49 demographic (a 3.2) than the one that aired in its regular timeslot (3.0). Meanwhile, the “2 Broke Girls” rerun (2.2) was only two-tenths below what the show’s last new episode scored on Monday night. Could we see something similar happening in the fall? Definitely. Considering that a repeat of “Person of Interest” got a 1.7 at 10:00, it seems to be more than fine in this timeslot.

Sadly, NBC does not have good news to report from its own 10:00 series “Hannibal.” The show fell this week to its new low in 1.4, which makes it more of a toss-up for renewal than it was a week ago. This is especially bad considering that there was no competition really from either of the other major networks. At least they can celebrate that “Community” rose this week up to a 1.3 (which is nice given that the show is getting better as of late), and “Parks and Recreation” managed two straight 1.7 ratings for its back-to-back episodes that aired in the place of “The Office” at 9:00.

The biggest stunner to us was seeing a new “Vampire Diaries” score just a 0.9, its lowest rating in a very long time. However, the positive out of this was that “Beauty and the Beast” actually maintained the 0.6 that it had for its last new episode in late March. This shows that it may not be fully lead-in dependent, and helps its shot at renewal.

If you want to check out our full review of Thursday night’s “Community,” be sure to visit the link here.

Photo: NBC