Criminal Minds season 14, SEAL Team score small ratings victories on Halloween

We should start off this particular ratings article with the following: Why do so many networks program Halloween? This is routinely one of the harder nights to get a lot of viewers for, simply because many families are out doing other things. Even if trick-or-treating is often over by the time primetime rolls around, there are still other activities such as candy-eating, candy-checking, and … did we say candy-eating?

Related Ratings video! – Check out the most-recent edition of our ongoing Ratings Watch article series below! Meanwhile, remember that you can subscribe for some other YouTube updates and be sure to also take a look at our playlist for more.

Anyhow, there’s no real point in going through every single show to lose viewers last night because A) there are a lot of them and B) much of the decline is artificial. If shows don’t bounce back from weaker outings in one week’s time, that’s a problem to focus more on then.

For the time being, let’s point out a couple of shows that have something to be reasonably happy about today.

Criminal Minds – While posting a 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic is, by no means, going to guarantee a season 15 renewal, it does at least show that this series can withstand a Halloween audience doing some other stuff. It remained all of its viewership from the week prior in the demo and also improved in total viewers. (This was a particularly strong episode, and you can read more about it over here.)

SEAL Team – Finally, another CBS show got some good news in that Wednesday’s episode generated a 0.8 rating — also even with the week before. This show is probably a little more likely to get another season than Criminal Minds, though we like to remain at least cautiously optimistic about each one of them.

As we noted, the numbers were down for all of One Chicago plus Survivor and most of ABC’s lineup. Why did CBS, at least in its later hours, retain so much viewership? It may just be that the average age for shows like SEAL Team and Criminal Minds is a little bit older and they may not have as many family Halloween festivities to do.

Related News – Be sure to see what is coming up on Criminal Minds next!

What did you end up watching on TV Wednesday night? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments. (Photo: CBS.)