‘Designated Survivor’ gets off to tremendous start in live+3 ratings

We’ve been keeping track of some of the live+3 data for a number of new shows airing across the board, largely because we’re now in an era where live ratings only tell part of the story. More and more people record or stream their favorite shows, and that’s especially true for a show like “Designated Survivor,” which airs at 10:00 p.m. Eastern after some early-risers are settling into bed for the evening.

As a whole, the Kiefer Sutherland series rose from a 2.2 rating in the 18-49 demographic all the way up to a 3.7, which was one of the largest surges of the past week other than “The Big Bang Theory” getting around a 1.6 improvement. In total viewers, it went from 10.4 million viewers to over 15.3 million, the biggest improvement out of any show tracked so far this season in that measure. The percentage improvements here are also solid, and it shows that there’s clearly something about this particular series with this particular actor that viewers are responding to.

From our vantage point, we think that the show is smartly talking politics at a time where it is a hot topic, while at the same time it is greatly benefiting from its leading man remaining incredibly popular following “24.” It’s also airing at a time where there is a hole in the market for this sort of programming — “Code Black” (yet to premiere) and “Chicago PD” appeal to similar audiences, but they’re not precisely the same.

We’ll see just how well Sutherland’s show holds in the weeks ahead. Typically, we see declines of at least 10% following the series premiere of a new show.