Ratings: ‘Under the Dome’ instant smash hit for CBS, clobbers ‘Mistresses’ on ABC

We assumed that “Under the Dome” would be a pretty successful show for CBS this summer, but this successful? At this rate, the network is going to start ordering up other Stephen King books to series in the weeks ahead.

For the show’s series premiere on Monday night, the show drew an incredible 13.1 million viewers, and also a 3.2 rating in the 18-49 demographic. While this means that the show skewed somewhat older, it’s still incredibly impressive given that the only two new network dramas to rival it in their premieres are “The Following” (which drew the same sort of figure) or “Revolution,” which scored an amazing 4.1 before people realized that the show wasn’t very good.

What CBS really should be pretty relieved about is that most reviews for “Under the Dome” were positive, with even some of the loyal fans of the book coming around to the new adaptation. We think that anything over a 2.0 in the summer merits an almost-instant renewal, given that many shows are brought back despite drawing only around a 1.7 or so. One of the biggest ironies here is that this show really performed better in its premiere than anything that CBS actually launched this past season, which has to be a somewhat-embarrassing blow to how poor new programming was this past year during the standard season.

While we don’t have the official ratings for some of the other programs just yet, know that “Under the Dome” crushed “Mistresses” over on ABC, and easily was the top show at 10:00 p.m. Eastern save for maybe the Stanley Cup Finals (which will not have final numbers until later in the day). So Les Moonves, take a bow; you’ve earned it.

If you want to know why we think that “Under the Dome” had a brilliant start to its series, you can do so over at the link here.

Photo: CBS