Ratings: ‘Extant’ season 2 premiere low, ‘Mr. Robot’ impresses, ‘Big Brother 17’ solid

We’re going to talk about both broadcast and cable ratings in the span of this particular article, mostly because it is not so much like there are so many different shows out there that merit different articles about them right now.

“Extant” – Ouch. A 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic for a premiere is awful. We know that the show has a great streaming deal with Amazon, and that is largely the reason why it was renewed in the first place. This is a really intriguing show with a new concept, but at the same time it’s got a terrible name, and Halle Berry is not the big-name star she once was. It’s with that we feel like this show, even with its current lucrative deal, is probably not going to be renewed. Remember that most broadcast shows tend to decline from one week to the next.

“Big Brother” – The reality franchise improved in multiple ways Wednesday night. Not only is its 1.9 rating an improvement from its Sunday performance, but it also marks a slight increase over the equivalent broadcast from last year. Ultimately, what we make of this is mostly that there are still many people still interested in checking out this show, even if it is a huge time commitment.

“Mr. Robot” – To us, this is the biggest winner Wednesday. We know that the ratings last week bear an asterisk given that there were many advance viewings and the premiere is online early; but do you know how hard it is to convert streams into live viewers? It’s not easy, and per TVbythenumbers the show actually improved its 18-49 rating to around a 0.6, as compared to a 0.5 for the premiere. It lost about 20,000 total viewers or so, but USA’s not going to sweat that. The series has been renewed already for a second season, but we feel like this is an interesting case study for the network.