Cable ratings: ‘The Last Ship’ season 3 recovers; ‘Murder in the First’ down

Last week when we first saw the ratings for “The Last Ship” and its season 3 premiere, our immediate response was apprehension regarding how big of a role the NBA Finals played in diminishing its overall audience. After all, we have seen so many examples of both reporters and fans over-stating the importance of competition on the schedule only for it blow up in their face down the road.

Now that we’ve seen the ratings for the third episode of the season, we’re happy to say that in this case, “The Last Ship” appears to be the exception to our rule, and the numbers bounced back rather nicely. Sunday’s episode, despite airing against the monster “Game of Thrones” finale on HBO, drew a 0.6 rating in the 18-49 demographic, an incredible increase from the week prior. We should still probably temper ourselves somewhat here given that this is still below the season 2 average, or any rating that the show received during that season, but it is a much more manageable drop.

One other thing that we should mention moving into Sunday is that for the entirety of season 2, there was not a single episode that aired opposite “Game of Thrones.” We’ll hopefully gauge that show’s impact on it come July 10. (We anticipate the ratings being low for the July 3 installment due to the holiday.(

“Murder in the First” down – For those curious as to this show’s ratings, the premiere here drew a 0.3 rating, down from the season 2 premiere, but at the same time, not a significant decrease from the numbers last year. We expect it to draw the lower ratings on Sundays, but it needs to stay consistent.

We’ll have some further numbers and reports soon; for now, head over here to get some other TV news on all we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: TNT.)