Spike TV’s “Lip Sync Battle” continues to drop the mic on its competition each Thursday night.
Eight weeks into the “Tonight Show” spinoff’s first season, the LL Cool J-hosted series is averaging 2.9 million total viewers per episode. That impressive total is the highest in network history for an original series but it’s not the show’s only Nielsen number worth bragging about. In the all-important 18-49 demographic, the show’s 1.9 rating is also Spike’s best ever for a Spike original.
The show’s debut pulled in 3.4 million total viewers after a week of DVR playback, just half a million more than the season-to-date average. All numbers in this story are of Nielsen’s “most current” metric, which counts delayed viewing up to seven days where available.
Spike’s No. 2 and No. 3-rated originals are “Bar Rescue” and “Ink Masters.”
Against all of television, the 30-minute “Lip Sync Battle” at 10 p.m. has ranked fifth in its timeslot from April 2 to May 14, placing it behind just CBS, ESPN, ABC and NBC in the demo. The show skews even better with younger viewers, as its only bested in 18-34 by ESPN, Adult Swim and TNT — and two of those three have had the NBA Playoffs lately.
Remove the young males from that equation and “Lip Sync” comes in third behind ABC — which puts up the strong Shondaland Thursdays — and Adult Swim.
Naturally, Spike TV wants to see more of its prized possession — which is DJ’d and co-hosted by Chrissy Teigen — so “Lip Sync Battle” was renewed last month for a second season.
But don’t look too far ahead, readers and viewers: There are still nine episodes left for the freshman run, with tonight’s episode featuring ’80s and ’90s hip-hop group Salt-N-Pepa facing off against each other (Cheryl James vs. Sandra Denton). Hopefully they won’t tie the matchup, or “Push It.” Sorry.
Next week, Queen Latifah takes on Marlon Wayans. May the best mouth win.
Previously this season, “Lip Sync Battle” has featured Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jimmy Fallon, John Krasinski, Stephen Merchant, Julianne Hough, Derek Hough, Hoda Kotb, Anne Hathaway, Mike Tyson and Anna Kendrick, among others.