Ratings: Did Game of Thrones hurt NCIS: Los Angeles, Madam Secretary?
Let’s talk, for example, about NCIS: Los Angeles — otherwise known as the show most susceptible to taking a pretty dramatic ratings hit. When you think about it, these two shows feel like they’d have at least somewhat of a shared audience, and that panned out as the episode on Sunday ended up drawing a 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic and then just over 6.7 million viewers. This isn’t exactly great news for CBS, but it’s certainly not as awful as it could have been — these numbers aren’t any lower than what we’ve seen already this season. (Ironically, the news was worse for God Friended Me beforehand, as that show generated a 0.6 rating even though it wasn’t even directly up against the HBO drama.)
For some more NCIS: Los Angeles video discussion from last night, check out the bottom of this article! For some other insight, remember to subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube and also to check out our official playlist.
Perhaps most curious to us is that the talent shows from Sunday night actually weren’t impacted at all by some of what you saw over at HBO. American Idol, for example, ended up drawing a 1.3 rating for its first regular performance show of the season, up a good margin from last week when it was forced against the ACM Awards. Apparently, that is a bigger threat to it than some dragons. Meanwhile, World of Dance ended up generating some improvement as well in a 0.8.
The ultimate takeaway that we’ve got from all of this is that while Game of Thrones is a ratings monster, clearly a lot of its viewers are not people who check out other programs across network TV on Sunday night anyway. These are people who often watch television either in other places or in different ways. A part of us thinks that we’ll see ratings records again for the season 8 premiere, but given the move away from traditional television, the extent of its might may not be clear until more consolidated viewing figures come out.
The show we’re the most worried about
At the moment, it’s clearly Madam Secretary after last night’s new episode ended up generating a 0.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic. We would’ve loved to see its performance at least stay around a 0.5 — maybe it suffered a little bit from viewers who were still catching up on Game of Thrones, though another clear factor is that with temperatures a little bit higher in the spring, there may be a lot of viewers not all that interested in sitting in front of the TV in the first place.
What did you end up checking out on Sunday night? Be sure to share right now in the comments, and hopefully we’ll have the official Game of Thrones ratings soon. (Photo: CBS.)