Ratings: ‘Arrow’ season 4 starts strong; ‘Empire’ season 2, ‘Code Black’ fall

For one reason or another, “Empire” is starting to lose some steam already in its second season. Did Fox get a little greedy with the show? For the time being we’d say that our immediate answer to that is “yes.” Maybe they should have kept the show around 12 episodes, and then waited until the new year to air them. This is what “Game of Thrones” does with its ten-episode orders (keep it simple), and its ratings always rise. Maybe it is possible that this would have happened anyway.

Regardless of whatever the reason is, the reality is that “Empire” fell again this week to a 5.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic, the second straight week of decline in the live viewing figures. We don’t want to bash this too much, though, given that it is still the #1 show on network TV by a pretty wide margin; however, we have a hard time thinking that it is suddenly going to be able to compete anymore with “The Walking Dead.” That show is bound to almost for-sure premiere higher.

As for other shows on Wednesday night, the majority of the good news goes for “Arrow” (1.1), which had a very nice start to season 4, especially after what we feel to be a disappointing third season. The rest of the lineup for the most part wasn’t great. “Code Black” (1.1) and “Rosewood” (1.7) both continued to fall, though we feel the latter show will probably get still a full season. “Modern Family” (2.7) is continuing to look more and more ordinary, and even “Survivor” (2.0) slipped for what was a very entertaining episode.

Remember the days where the majority of shows were drawing a 2.0 or higher among the Big Four networks? It wasn’t that long ago. Now, “Survivor,” “Empire,” “and “Modern Family” are the only ones.

If you missed our review of the “Arrow” premiere, you can see that by heading over to the link here! Also, be sure to sign up now to get some more TV updates on everything we cover, sent right to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Fox.)