Ratings: ‘The Vampire Diaries’ minus Nina Dobrev starts low; ‘Blacklist,’ ‘Heroes: Reborn’ down

We anticipate this becoming a patter over the course of the 2015-16 TV season: Ratings being lower than many people expect or would like. This is just emblematic for the most part of the current TV climate.

For “The Vampire Diaries,” what it saw on Thursday night was a season premiering with a 0.6 rating in the 18-49 demographic. A few years ago, this would be unheard of. We cannot really claim that the departure of Nina Dobrev is solely to blame here, either, given that ratings were starting to fall to this level in the spring with her. “The Originals” followed it with a 0.4 rating, so neither show is now looking like they are going to go the distance. Every other show on The CW so far this week (at least new programming) has fared better.

Elsewhere, “Heroes: Reborn” (1.2) and “The Blacklist” (1.5) both declined versus their previous airings, and even the Shonda Rhimes lineup of “Grey’s Anatomy” (2.1), “Scandal” (2.6), and “How to Get Away with Murder” (2.1) is looking less beastly than it was at this point a week ago. None of these ABC shows are in any danger of going anywhere.

On Fox, the good news is that “Sleepy Hollow” (1.0) did not really decline much from its previous rating. Of course, the fact remains that this previous rating was terrible, and it hardly does a whole lot to inspire confidence in the show itself.

We’ll have some more news related to the ratings of some of these shows in the weeks ahead, but one thing we’d say you can count on is “The Player” (0.9) not lasting beyond its first 13 episodes. Getting these sort of ratings at this point in the game is never a good sign.

Photo: NBC