This Is Us season 2 ratings: What’s the expectation for NBC?

There is no new This Is Us tonight, and the fact that the show is off the air until September makes us want to cry almost as much as watching a new This Is Us episode. It’s a long wait, but the silver lining there is that this should allow the writing staff a little bit of time to rest, unwind, and start to look ahead to the future of the series. It’s not going to work them to the bone as many others are doing with their 22-24 episode orders.

For the sake of this article, we’re discussing This Is Us season 2 ratings — in other words, something that does not even exist right now, but we’re still curious about it anyway.

Let’s start here by looking back on season 1, which averaged in total a 2.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic and then also 9.8 million viewers. Note that we’re only talking here in terms of live viewers, but this is still enough to make This Is Us officially the #1 new show of the year in the demo, and also the #2 scripted drama as a whole on network TV beyond Empire over on Fox. With that show starting to lose steam, there are scenarios in which we can envision without a problem This Is Us finding a way to overtake it before sitting on the TV throne itself at the end of next season.

The season 1 finale drew a 3.4 rating, which is the show’s strongest rating and the highest timeslot rating for NBC in a good decade. It’s a little unreasonable to expect the show to surge by 0.7 on average year-to-year. However, we do think that a 3.0 rating should be where the network sets the bar in terms of averages. This is a show that will likely gain more viewers due to binge-watching over the summer, it may become even more appointment television, and above all, it’s quality. If you have a great show that captures the spirit of a specific moment in history, people will flock to you. It’s not something that we see often, but it does happen.

In terms of total viewers, it’s for this reason we think that the show could easily average somewhere over 10.5 million without a problem. While we don’t think NBC would be disappointed if the ratings dropped for season 2, isn’t it always better to shoot for the stars?

Do you think that the This Is Us season 2 ratings will match up with the first season, or are our personal expectations a little too high in your mind? Share your thoughts on the subject below! (Photo: NBC.)