Ratings: ‘Superstore’ season 2 wins big following Olympics coverage

While the fall TV season is not actually beginning until the middle of September, NBC gave its viewers a little bit of a sneak preview on Friday night courtesy of one simple thing: A sneak preview of “Superstore” season 2 prior to its formal debut in around a month or so.

Given that shows utilizing the Olympics for ratings tend to see an almost-instant boost, we’re far from surprised to see the same thing here. The comedy drew a series-high 3.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic and also over 10 million viewers. If we saw it getting these sort of numbers on a regular basis, odds are that NBC would go ahead and renew it for around four more seasons.

Unfortunately for the show, there’s really not any sort of guarantee that there will be a retention rate on this at all. What we’ve seen over the course of recent years is that shows that benefit at first from this bump do not tend to reap much in the way or rewards after the fact. NBC aired many comedies a few years ago after the Games (remember “Go On” or “Animal Practice”?) that are not on the air now because their ratings tanked. It’s a similar sort of phenomenon that befalls some shows that air after the Super Bowl.

Now that we’ve thrown this disclaimer out there, we do think that “Superstore” is a very entertaining show, and one that probably will at least get a few more viewers out of this outing. The real issue is just reminding the majority of these people when it is coming back on the air — and also retaining interest for what is ultimately a super-long hiatus.