Ratings: ‘Survivor: Kaoh Rong’ rises; ‘Empire’ season 2 falls; ‘Heartbeat’ improves

With Wednesday still a relatively quiet night as far as TV programming is concern (that’ll start to change next week), we have a little bit less in terms of programming to discuss here. Let’s just try to figure out ways to still take advantage.

The good news – For “Survivor: Kaoh Rong,” this was a chance to improve up to a 2.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic for what was a pretty fantastically crazy episode. This has been one of the more lowed-rated seasons, but not necessarily because of its content. It’s more of a natural downward slop for any show that has been on for more than a decade and a half. Viewers will eventually either tune out, or watch via other measures. It’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

For the medical series “Heartbeat,” we’re in the midst of a different story. While the show improved to a 0.8 rating, it’s still performing worse than “The Mysteries of Laura” in this timeslot. If one of them does return, odds are that it will be the Debra Messing series first.

The bad news – “Empire” has probably moved past its “overwhelming hit” status at this point, and has now settled instead into the role of simply being a “hit.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It dropped again this week to a 3.6 rating, but that’s still easily enough to make it #1, and depending on how “The Big Bang Theory” fares this week it could close as the #1 scripted show on TV for the past seven days. “Game of Thrones” will provide it some more competition come Sunday when that show premieres.

Also, “Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders” fell to a 1.3, but we do still think the show has a chance of return. Its numbers are exactly what we expected going into the season.

You can read some more coverage of that excellent “Survivor” episode from last night just by heading over to this link! Also, sign up over here to score some other TV news on all we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)