Ratings: ‘Hairspray Live!’ strong; ‘Empire’ season 3 loses top-rated spot to ‘This Is Us’

If you’re looking for a reason behind some of the ratings drops of Wednesday night, there is really one culprit: “Hairspray Live” over on NBC. The much-anticipated production drew overall a 2.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic and almost 9 million viewers. While these numbers are closer to “Peter Pan” than “The Sound of Music” or “The Wiz,” it’s still a solid-enough performance for the network to be fairly satisfied with the end result.

As for everything else that was airing on the night…

CBS – “Survivor” (1.7) and “Criminal Minds” (1.3) each took a pretty significant hit that came with having more competition on the air; meanwhile, “Code Black” (1.1) actually ended up improving slightly. Maybe it’s wrong for us to cite “Hairspray” as the biggest reason for some of the changes, but in the absence of further information, this is probably just what we’re going to go with.

ABC – With “Modern Family” airing a repeat, some other shows on the night experienced some struggles. “The Goldbergs” (1.5), “Speechless” (1.3), and “black-ish” (1.2) were all down in terms of comedy ratings, while “Designated Survivor” (1.1) experienced a drop of its own a little bit alter in the night.

FOX – For “Lethal Weapon,” ending the fall with a 1.4 rating is probably a little bit of a bummer given that it is the show’s lowest rating by a mile. Meanwhile, “Empire” (2.5) officially has given the crown over to “This Is Us” as the top-rated scripted show of the week. All empires do fall, but the decline of this show in the ratings the past year or so is pretty astronomical. To date, it is down over 25% from the season 2 average.

The CW – “Arrow” (0.7) was unsurprisingly down big after the crossover event; this is around where most of the other episodes fared. Meanwhile, “Frequency” (0.2) fell to its lowest rating of the season. (Photo: NBC.)