‘The X-Files’ season 10: Start time; will Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny return to big ratings?

Tonight marks one of the biggest ratings events of the entire year: The AFC and NFC Championship Games. These games are going to have tens of millions of viewers, and it only makes some sense for the network with the latter game to try to capitalize on the lead-in. This year that network is Fox, who is going to be airing the first episode of the upcoming “X-Files” revival series as soon as the game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Carolina Panthers is wrapped up.

So when will the premiere episode air? As of right now, this episode is slated to air at 10:00 p.m. Eastern time, but be warned that it could be a little bit later than that depending on the outcome of the game. For example, “Saturday Night Live” was pushed back over half an hour last week thanks to a different playoff game featuring the Cardinals on NBC. We’ll try to give some updates as we have them.

As for what our ratings expectations are for this show, we do think that some of the buzz is going to lead to some sort of a spike. For the time being, we’re predicting that the show will get somewhere over a 3.0 in the 18-49 demographic, with it going maybe as high as a 3.5. Is it possible that we’ll see stronger numbers than this? Sure, but we’re being fairly conservative since we’re looking at a late broadcast for one, but also that some of the expectations may be inflated because of the series’ popularity online. It’s still to be seen what the interest among casual fans will be.

What do you expect to see the show score tonight? Share in the comments, and head over here if you missed the surprising news about Gillian Anderson’s original salary offer for the series.

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