Ratings: ‘NCIS’ hurt by Cote de Pablo’s exit; ‘Supernatural’ season 9 starts strong

Typically when you see claims online about fans threatening to boycott a given show or event, you rarely see a big dent in the ratings, as what happens is the boycott ends up giving the show publicity, and people end up watching. While we don’t know and don’t think necessarily that Cote de Pablo fans threatening to not watch “NCIS” last night is the only reason for a big drop in the numbers (since you also have to remember here numbers typically decline in the third week of a season), lack of interest had to be a contributing factor when you’re talking about a drop of the degree below.

Overall, the CBS series lost eight-tenths of a full ratings point in the 18-49 demo, and scored a 2.7 rating and nearly 18 million viewers. What’s interesting about this to us is that the viewer drop was not nearly that bad, so the majority of the fans who either bailed or recorded the show this week versus watching live last were younger. “NCIS” has always skewed older, but never to this sort of extent.

What is crazy about the night, though, is that this was still almost enough to be #1 in the demo across all of the major networks … and a recap episode of “The Voice” (2.9) won the night. “Agents of SHIELD” (2.8) is proving itself to not be the viewer draw that Marvel may have hoped, as the quality from our vantage point is not that of another superhero show in “Arrow.”

Speaking of The CW, Tuesday was probably a victory for them more than any other network. Seeing “Supernatural” draw a 1.2 rating is incredible given that it was on a new night, and it shows the value of really developing something that fans enjoy and start to embrace over time. (Plus, last night’s premiere was their best since the Eric Kripke days.) “The Originals” even held its entire preliminary rating of 0.9 from last week, and if it stays around that level, you have to think here that a full season for the show is inevitable. Granted, “Supernatural” will have to face off against a new episode of “The Voice” next week, and while we don’t see there being a huge crossover audience, there may be enough for there to be a little bit of trouble.

Finally, we just want to point out that “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” (1.5) is the second-strongest show on Fox’s comedy lineup, which is important as we campaign for it and “The Mindy Project” to swap places, given that we already know what the latter does with the “New Girl” lead-in.

Photo: CBS