Despite facing Fox’s 2-hour The X Factor on the night this year, ABC’s numbers rose sharply over the same Wednesday last year in both Total Viewers (+27%) and Adults 18-49 (+38%).
For the 2nd week in a row this season, ABC claimed Wednesday’s definitive #1 TV show with Modern Family in viewers and young adults.
At 8pm, ABC’s The Middle dominated its comedy competition in the half-hour, leading NBC’s Up All Night by 3.3 million viewers and by 24% in Adults 18-49. In addition, The Middle beat out CBS Survivor: South Pacific in the time period by 43% among Adults 18-34.
Although it’s facing The X Factor in the time period this year, The Middle was up from its performance on the year-ago night for the 2nd straight telecast among viewers and young adults.
Building on its lead-in by double-digit percentages among viewers (+14%) and young adults (27%) at 8:30pm, the series debut of Suburgatory opened as ABC’s biggest comedy premiere in the half hour in 8 years with Total Viewers and in 6 years with Adults 18-49 – since 10/1/03 and 10/12/05, respectively. Similarly to its lead-in, Suburgatory overshadowed its comedy competition in the half-hour, more than tripling the delivery of NBC’s Free Agents in viewers (+216%) and Adults 18-49 (+230%). In fact, the new ABC comedy tied Survivor in the slot among Adults 18-49 and beat the CBS reality series by an impressive 59% in Adults 18-34.
Topping the year-ago debut of Better with You in the half-hour by sizeable margins in viewers (+24%) and young adults (+32%), Suburgatory produced ABC’s largest audience in the slot with a comedy telecast since November 2003 and its top young adult number since November 2005 – since 11/19/03 and 11/16/05, respectively.
Surging over its lead-in at 9pm to win its time period over the third half-hour hour of The X Factor in viewers (+10%) and young adults (+37%), ABC’s Modern Family finished as the night’s #1 TV show and posted the series’ 2nd-strongest regular telecast ever (behind only the prior week’s season premiere).
Despite heightened competition year to year, Modern Family jumped over its year-ago telecast by 1.3 million viewers and by 22% in young adults.
At 9:30pm against the final half-hour of The X Factor, the sophomore season premiere of Happy Endings scored series-highs in Total Viewers and Adults 18-49. Happy Endings stood as the #1 scripted show in its slot with Adults 18-34, Men 18-34 and Women 18-34.
Boosting its time slot from the year-ago night in viewers (+6%) and young adults (+14%), Happy Endings generated ABC’s best performance in the time period with regular programming in nearly 8 months – since 2/9/11.
Building on its Total Viewer lead-in (+16%) during the 10pm hour against veteran dramas on both CBS (CSI) and NBC (L&O: SVU) , ABC’s freshman drama Revenge ran a strong second, beating L&O SVU by 21% in Total Viewers and by 35% in Adults 18-49. The new ABC drama ranked #1 in the hour for its 2nd straight telecast with Adults 18-34 and across all key Women demos (W18-34/W18-49/W25-54).
Revenge continued to generate enormous time-period improvement for ABC, surging over the year-ago night in viewers (+87%) and young adults (+125%).
(source; ABC)
