The Rookie finale ratings: Do they boost season 2 renewal odds?
The first The Rookie finale ratings are in … so what do they actually mean for the future of this show? Within this article, our goal is to put on our TV detective cap and try to get to the bottom of this very subject!
(Before we do just that, though, here is your reminder to also view the video at the bottom of this article in order to see our discussion on the state of season 2. If you enjoy this, we recommend that you subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube for more.)
Let’s start off this article with a hearty dose of good news — last night’s finale (which presented some not-so-great news in the form of a big cliffhanger) ended up drawing a 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic. That marks a nice improvement from the penultimate episode, and it fits mostly in line with the show’s season 1 average. In terms of total viewers, The Rookie drew 3.99 million, its best total since late March, but actually down slightly from the season 1 average overall. That shouldn’t come as too much of a shock — there are typically fewer viewers around in the spring than the fall.
One thing that is fairly interesting about less night is that The Rookie did actually have a slightly better lead-in than expected. The premiere for new comedy Bless This Mess, a late-season addition with a fairly small episode order, ended up drawing a 0.9 rating in the demo. This is actually ABC’s #1 show of the night in both viewers and the demo, but we’re not ready to coronate this as the next great show when we haven’t seen the remainder of its season 1 numbers just yet. There’s a reasonably good chance that it will fall in episode 2 — that’s no indictment on anything Bless This Mess did last night. It’s just the reality of how most new shows fare in week 2.
When it comes to The Rookie, our view is the finale ratings-bump is slightly encouraging, but not so much so that you can sound some big alarm now stating that it’s going to be back for a season 2. We’re more optimistic than pessimistic, but that’s due mostly to a few different factors: The premise (which seems reasonably digestible for viewers and makes it easy to dive in), Nathan Fillion’s star power, and the ability for this show to build a streaming audience both in the US and down the road. It also helps dramatically that The Rookie is an ABC Studios production, which means that the network gets a larger share of the profits than they would otherwise. That’s something that in 2019, most major networks jump up and down about in celebration.
Time will tell on The Rookie season 2 — more than likely, you’re going to get a chance to score an official answer by the time we get around to May.
What do you think about The Rookie, its finale ratings, and its future over on ABC? Let us know right now in the comments; once there is more news, we will have it for you here.