Ratings: ‘Reign’ continues to fall in with ‘Beauty and the Beast’ trajectory; what does this mean?
Last week, we first proposed a theory when it comes to The CW’s new series “Reign,” and how it was already starting to feel like the reincarnation of another show that aired on the network at this time last year in “Beauty and the Beast.” To say nothing about one show being better than the other or trying to compare the two in terms of story, the numbers for their respective series premieres were around the same following “The Vampire Diaries.” Was the lead-in a big factor in that, or was there just an interest in the concept alone? This was something that we were excited to find out when the “Reign” ratings came in today.
Let’s create a little bit of a comparison here. For the second episode last year, “Beauty and the Beast” drew a 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic, and also just over 2 million viewers in the preliminary figures. This year, “Reign’s” second episode drew a 0.6 rating and over 1.8 million viewers. Therefore, you have to give the title to “Beauty and the Beast” for week two, though we also have to point out that at this time last year, “The Vampire Diaries” had a better performance in the demo and in total viewers of around the same margin.
So why does any of this matter? It all really could come into play in April or May, if there are discussions as to whether or not bring “Reign” back. This is a similar problem that The CW had with “The Secret Circle” over a year ago, and they canceled it; meanwhile, they gave “Beauty and the Beast” a shot by moving it to Monday, where it is now unfortunately the lowest-performing show on their Monday-Thursday schedule. As it stands right now, it would probably be canceled. If “Reign” ends up in the position of averaging a 0.5 or 0.6 rating at the end of the season, and the rest of the other shows are performing at the same level, they may be inclined to keep a lower-rated show like “Hart of Dixie” (knowing that it is near syndication) and kick “Reign” to the curb, feeling that it would lose a big chunk of momentum without the lead-in. It’s one of the most-fascinating TV storylines of the season, and we are excited to watch this play out.
As of right now, we don’t think it’s looking good for “Reign.” It already has lower numbers than “Beauty and the Beast,” and you’ll be asking a lot to get it to maintain this figure throughout the difficult spring season.