Ratings: Magnum PI posts big numbers after AFC Championship; Supergirl slides

One of the biggest things that we can say about the television industry overall is that having a great lead-in matters. The latest ratings are in for Sunday night, and it is clear that Magnum PI benefited quite significantly airing after the AFC Championship Game.

This past new episode of the Jay Hernandez show ending up generating (at least in the early ratings, there could be adjustments later) a 3.8 rating in the 18-49 demographic alongside more than 12 million total viewers. These are easily the best numbers for the show to date, and the larger question to wonder now is whether we’ll see some sort of carryover into the new episode tonight? While it’s always great to see shows get these big numbers after football, it typically does not lead to a whole lot of retention in the long-term. Most of the viewers who check out a show once don’t tend to stick around, but here is to hoping that Magnum PI finds a way to buck that trend somewhat.

It made perfect sense for CBS to try to capitalize on this game to the best of their ability, but what makes a little less sense is seeing some other networks even try to air some new programming opposite the game. For example, what was The CW thinking putting episodes of Supergirl as well as Charmed on the air, especially since Supergirl delivered one of the biggest twists we’ve ever seen courtesy of Alex Danvers? Sunday’s episode generated just over a million viewers and a 0.3 rating, which were some of its lowest numbers to date; meanwhile, Charmed posted a 0.3 rating of its own. We think that these numbers will bounce back a little bit next week, and that there are a lot of viewers who will catch up via some other means; we still don’t really understand the strategy here in the first place. While the AFC Championship Game doesn’t get the incredible numbers of the Super Bowl, it is still one of the most-watched events of the year — The CW definitely won’t be programming new episodes against the Super Bowl.

Monday night’s television lineup is interesting just because of the influx of reality TV. We have Celebrity Big Brother premiering in one corner, and then America’s Got Talent: The Champions and The Bachelor coming on elsewhere. Why in the world would these networks want to schedule things like this? We definitely think there’s some crossover here that could hurt ratings.

What do you think about the latest ratings for Magnum PI and some other shows? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments. (Photo: CBS.)