Ratings: ‘Survivor: San Juan del Sur’ premiere, ‘Big Brother 16’ finale up; ‘black-ish’ starts big

Just as you would imagine, CBS has to feel pretty good about its slate of reality competition shows right now, even if both “Survivor” and “Big Brother” are ancient by modern TV standards.

The premiere for the Jeff Probst-hosted show’s 29th season, entitled “Survivor: San Juan del Sur,” managed to actually rise versus last season’s premiere in scoring a 2.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic. We attribute it largely to the show’s recent string of very good seasons, and one of the most devoted followings in all of TV. Meanwhile, the “Big Brother 16” finale that followed was up a full 0.4 from last year in posting a 2.6. That’s very surprising, given that there may have been interest last year in watching some of the offensive houseguests get some egg on their faces.

Elsewhere, “The Mysteries of Laura” may start calling “Harry’s Law” for references. Despite getting almost 10 million viewers, this translated to just a 1.5 rating. This puts it up there with “Blue Bloods” as one of the oldest-skewing shows on TV. That also puts NBC in a quagmire if they do cancel it. The premiere of “Law & Order: SVU” scored a 2.1, which is down from last year’s premiere but up versus the end of season 15.

The only other notable news from last night, unless you are very interested in how “Red Band Society” is inching towards cancellation, is that “black-ish” premiered to a very solid 3.3 rating that is probably the best percentage retention of the “Modern Family” lead-in we’ve seen over the past few years. Still, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, since many other shows in this slot have premiered well and plummeted later.

At the moment, we’ve currently got a ton of “Big Brother” coverage up, so be sure to check some of that out! You can also sign up in the event you want further TV scoop on all we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: CBS