FXX sees decent ratings for ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,’ ‘The League’

Are we still upset about FX moving “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” to its new sister FXX network? Definitely, but we also unfortunately can’t really do anything about it. It wasn’t the cast’s decision to change; the powers-that-be just decided that the cable series would be a good way to launch a new network, which is geared towards the men 18-34 market rather than just adults 18-49.

If you were to look solely at this demo alone, then this actually turned out to be a win for the show. “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” drew more viewers of this demo than the season 8 premiere last year, though was down in every other key demographic. The show was clearly hurt by being in a smaller percentage of homes, and few people want to spend money on a bigger package just for one show.

This was actually the only one of the original FX shows to come on the other side with a better rating than it did at this time last year. “The League” tied “Sunny” with a 0.5 rating in the 18-49 demo, but it was down in everything on the new network. The same also goes for “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell,” which is now airing as a nightly series in the vein of “The Daily Show.”

At the end of the day, we see FXX doing well enough in this business to probably survive, but there is starting to be somewhat of a logjam in this battle for young men. You have this network now competing against Comedy Central, Spike TV, and the Esquire Network, which is premiering on September 23 and we can never fully support thanks to it putting G4 off the map.

If you want to read our full review for the “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” premiere, we suggest heading on over to the link here.

Photo: FXX