Ratings: A Million Little Things hits viewer high; How to Get Away with Murder falls

Thursday night’s ratings paint a rather-interesting picture for a number of different shows on the air, but for this edition of our CarterMatt Ratings Watch we are going to start with some ABC programs that have been on the bubble as of late.

Related Video – Be sure to check out our take on how live ratings work in the video below! Also, remember to subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube for more TV discussions.

As of right now, it’s really hard to even consider A Million Little Things a bubble show anymore. Clearly, ABC loves it, and they are reaping the rewards big-time for moving it to Thursday night following Grey’s Anatomy. Last night’s new episode generated a 1.1 rating in the 18-49 demographic and over 5.4 million viewers — the show’s largest total live audience to date.

This show is a great exhibit to how DVR ratings matter. On Wednesday nights it had one of the highest percentage of DVR viewers out of any on TV alongside Legends of Tomorrow; in moving it to Thursdays at an earlier time, ABC banked that they could get some of these DVR viewers to become live viewers and it’s shown to be a successful gambit. They may also be getting new viewers following Grey’s Anatomy.

Ultimately, it’s hard to see this drama, wrongfully dismissed by some as a This Is Us copycat earlier this season, back for another batch of episodes.

As for How to Get Away with Murder…

It’s almost the opposite of A Million Little Things in that nobody probably expresses the worry for it that they should be, just because it had a big-name star in Viola Davis and because the #HTGAWM hashtag trends regularly on Twitter during new episodes. Yet, the reality here for this show is that its ratings aren’t up to par.

Last night’s new episode drew the lowest number of the season in a 0.6 demo rating. The show’s down more than 20% in the demo this season, and last night’s episode aired opposite repeats of SVU and SWAT. This was an opportunity for the show to post better ratings, and instead it slid further into danger. While we remain hopeful for at least one more season, that has to do more with ABC not wanting to cancel a show starring Viola Davis than its actual performance as of late. It does perform fairly well in DVR viewership, and that should do enough for it to have a chance to properly tie together some of its loose ends in the fall.

Related News – Be sure to check out our preview for the next A Million Little Things episode

What do you think about the performance of some of Thursday night’s shows? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments. (Photo: ABC.)