Ratings: ‘Hannibal,’ ‘Aquarius’ replacement fares better for NBC; ‘Beauty and the Beast’ up

We imagine that this is not news that most people will want to hear, but we have to say it nonetheless: NBC may have made the right business decision by moving “Hannibal” and “Aquarius” to Saturday nights. Creatively it stinks, but we understand that they are going to care more about the bottom line than virtually any other thing out there.

The ratings for Thursday night make it very clear that with a 1.1 rating in the 18-49 demographic for its two-hour special, “Dateline” completely throttled the recent ratings for both of these shows. It was not even close. To make matters probably worse for them and better for “Dateline,” this news broadcast is more than likely significantly cheaper to produce, as well.

At this point, we just hope that “Hannibal” and “Aquarius” put up reasonably similar numbers to what they did when they were on Thursdays, but we’re not that optimistic about that, either.

Ultimately, “Dateline” did actually beat the majority of the competition on broadcast networks last night. The only shows to draw higher numbers were a repeat of “The Big Bang Theory” (1.4), and then the live eviction show for “Big Brother” (2.0). For those wondering, it is truly remarkable just how consistent that show manages to be week in and week out almost every summer, no matter if the twists are necessarily good or bad.

For those wondering what the latest numbers are for “Beauty and the Beast,” its most recent episode scored a 0.3, up a tenth versus the week before. The show is technically still renewed, but we know that there are some out there who really just like to keep track of such things.

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