Ratings: One Direction’s NBC special loses to ‘NCIS,’ ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ repeat

One of the things that we are constantly interested in here at CarterMatt is learning a thing or two about what the real connection is between Twitter and TV ratings. Does being a worldwide trending topic really factor in to big numbers?

Based on what we have seen over the past several months, the answer to that is “no.” While trending is obviously a good thing to increase your global outreach, these people still have to turn on their TVs. So while One Direction may have trended many times for their special airing on NBC, many of these people trending it may not have actually been in America watching it live.

Overall, this much-hyped special featuring Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, and Harry Styles drew just a 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic last night. That’s not a big number, though we don’t feel like the network was really expecting a whole lot two nights before Christmas. Given that there were more than three million viewers, we will say that there was probably a good concentration of people under the age of 18 who watched.

The night was ultimately won by a replay of the “Shrek the Halls” (1.2) special, but a mini-marathon of three different “NCIS” shows also beat One Direction pretty handily. In the preliminary ratings, the flagship series, “NCIS: Los Angeles,” and “NCIS: New Orleans” all drew 1.0 ratings. While we’ve seen the shows repeat better than this, it is pretty solid given the timing. All of them are going to return with new episodes early next year, and we’ll have further updates on that soon.

What do you think about these ratings? Are you surprised in the slightest? Share with a comment, and head over here to get some further TV scoop on all we cover right now via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: NBC.)