Why Chicago Med, This Is Us are making for perfect ratings team

We’ve now made it several weeks into the third season for Chicago Med, and with that, we do have a pretty clear takeaway: This is one of the most successful seasons for the NBC series that we’ve had a chance to see to date.

The ratings for the third season have remained consistently solid; as a matter of fact, the show is actually averaging 1.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic. This marks an increase of around 6% in the demo versus season 2. In an era of television where the vast majority of scripted series decline from one year to the next, it remains somewhat of a revelation that Chicago Med is doing so well.

So why is the Nick Gehlfuss – Torrey DeVitto series performing so well this year? Obviously, you can cite the lead-in (This Is Us) as a reason for it. This is one of the best lead-ins on television, and we’ve seen this series help out other shows’ ratings in the past. Take, for example, the performance of Chicago Fire last year when it was in this timeslot. However, the This Is Us lead-in doesn’t guarantee anything — we saw that this past fall with Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, which struggled to keep much of the audience established by Milo Ventimiglia and company.

Related – Be sure to preview the next new episode of Chicago Med!

Basically, the reason why Chicago Med, and Chicago Fire before it, perform so well in this timeslot is in part due to the message that they preach and the compatibility that the two parties have with This Is Us. Think about things this way: This Is Us is a show that, despite its many sad moments, is a warm show about family and the relationships that define our lives. While Chicago Med is more about a metaphorical family, it’s a family nonetheless. The NBC series is hopeful and encouraging despite all of the trouble that the patients are in. It’s a show about overcoming hurdles.

We know that there could be a temptation next fall for This Is Us to lead in to another new series, but we really hope that this doesn’t happen. As of right now, NBC’s Tuesday-night lineup is far from broken. Why in the world would you want to fix it?

What do you think: Is a Chicago Med season 4 renewal starting to become more of a sure thing? Be sure to share in the comments below!

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