Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) didn’t kiss last night on NBC’s “Law & Order: SVU” Season 23 premiere, but they did draw the most overall eyeballs (5.5 million) on broadcast TV.
NBC and Fox ended up in a tie for first place in primetime ratings among adults 18-49, but no one came close to NBC in total viewers.
The NFL Network’s “Thursday Night Football” game aired on ABC in Charlotte and on NBC in Houston, rendering the below early Nielsen numbers for those two networks subject to extra adjustment. Final Live + Same Day numbers, not including out-of-home viewing.
For now at least, NBC and Fox tied for first in ratings, both with a 0.7 rating in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic. NBC was first in total viewers with an average of 5.1 million, according to preliminary numbers. Fox was second with 3.1 million.
For NBC, “SVU” from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. averaged a 0.8 rating and those 5.5 million total viewers. At 10, the Season 2 start to “Law & Order: Organized Crime” drew a 0.6 rating and 4.3 million total viewers.
For Fox, Night 2 of the “Masked Singer” season premiere put up a 0.9 rating and 4.4 million total viewers at 8 o’clock. At 9, “Alter Ego” managed a 0.4 rating and 2.3 million total viewers.
CBS and ABC tied for third in ratings, both with a 0.4. CBS was third in total viewers with 2.8 million, ABC was fourth with 2.1 million.
For CBS, at 8, “Big Brother” had a 0.8 rating and 3.5 million total viewers. At 9, a Kenny Rogers special, “All in for The Gambler,” got a 0.3 rating and 2.9 million total viewers. A rerun followed.
For ABC, the Season 3 finale of “Holey Moley” at 8 had a 0.4 rating and 2.6 million total viewers. An hour of “The Hustler” starting at 9 got a 0.3 rating and 2 million total viewers. At 10, the Season 2 finale of the Craig Ferguson-hosted series maintained the same rating but dipped to 1.8 million total viewers.
The CW was fifth in ratings with a 0.1 and in total viewers with 501,000. “Coroner” at 8 had a 0.1 rating and 628,000 total viewers. At 9, “The Outpost” got a 0.1 rating and
We do not have early Nielsen numbers for Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo.