Emergence, Mixed-ish episode 2 ratings fall; FBI season 2 rises

We like to chart out early ratings for most of the network primetime series, and in the second Tuesday of the season, there were some notable declines.

How much so? Well, the worst news is probably for ABC’s high-concept drama Emergence, which they promoted heavily to what feels like no avail at the moment. Episode 2 ended up generating just a 0.6 rating in the 18-49 demographic and just under 3.6 million live viewers. These are pretty steep drops (think more than 20% in the demo and more than 10% in viewers) from the premiere, and it will need to level off fairly fast in the event that the show is going to stick around beyond its initial order.

The truth is, these sort of high-concept dramas are hard to keep around for various reasons. For starters, they need a premise that gets people right away, and they also need to build an audience via word-of-mouth. They don’t have that same “jump in anytime” viewership that procedurals have; a show like FBI (which improved on its premiere last night) can actually offer that a little bit more thanks to its cases being a little bit more isolated.

As for other new programming… The second episode of Mixed-ish over on ABC ended up drawing a 0.7 rating in the demo and also just over 3.5 million viewers. Expectations for comedies may be a little bit lower, and since the show’s numbers are more or less the same as Black-ish, maybe it can stick around for a little while.

As for the night’s big winners… In terms of the 18-49 demographic, This Is Us took home the top prize with a 1.7 rating. Meanwhile, in total viewers NCIS was king with more than 12 million choosing to watch the second episode with Cote de Pablo as a major guest star. (We’re not including the premiere.) These are probably trends that will last through the rest of the fall; even though Cote will not be in every NCIS, her story is still going to have a certain amount of significance within the days to come.

The Conners continues to be the #1 comedy of the night, thought with a 1.1 demo rating and 5.5 million viewers, it’s down versus last week.

For those wondering, the finale of Pandora on The CW ended up drawing overall a 0.1 rating. Not anything to write home about, but not shocking for a summer show on the network with little to no promotion.

What did you watch on Tuesday night? Be sure to share right now in the comments, and remember to stick around for some other news. (Photo: ABC.)