‘The Conners’ Season 3 Premiere Bumps Into Fox’s World Series, Slips 31% in Ratings

Returning ABC’s Wednesday comedies “The Goldbergs,” “The Conners” and “Black-ish” went up against Game 2 of Fox’s 2020 World Series last night, and the sitcoms are probably sitting on a lot of DVRs as we speak. The Season 3 premiere of “The Conners,” now in the “Modern Family”-vacated time slot, declined 31% in the key adults 18-49 demographic when compared with last fall’s Season 2 start. “Black-ish” shed 25% of its initially reported audience (it actually ticked up in final Nielsen numbers last year, which would make this decline represent one-third of the demo if you look at it that way) vs. the comparable season premiere in 2019, and “The Goldbergs” dropped 20%. Those gaps may very well close when one compares delayed viewing for the 2019 season premieres with 2020’s. Game 2 of the Rays-Dodgers World Series was steady with Game 1. Due to the nature of live sports, the below early Nielsen numbers for Fox should be considered subject to significant uptick. We’ll get final Game 2 numbers later today, read how Game 1 fared here.

Fox was first in ratings with a 1.8 rating/11 share in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic and in total viewers with an average of 7.2 million, according to preliminary numbers. That was all Game 2, which again, will report larger, more-accurate numbers mostly indicative of west-coast Dodger-viewing later on Thursday.

ABC was second in ratings with a 0.7/4 and in viewers with 3.6 million. “The Goldbergs” season premiere at 8 p.m. drew a 0.8/5 and 4.4 million viewers. A second half-hour at 8:30 p.m. received another 0.8/5 but declined to 3.8 million viewers. “The Conners” at 9 p.m. put up a 0.9/5 and 4.8 million viewers. The “Black-ish” season premiere at 9:30 p.m. had a 0.6/3 and 3 million viewers. “The Con” at 10 p.m. got a 0.5/3 and 2.7 million viewers.

CBS was third in ratings with a 0.6/4 and in viewers with 3 million. “Big Brother” at 8 p.m. had a 0.9/6 and 4.1 million viewers. “The Amazing Race” at 9 p.m. got a 0.6/4 and 3.2 million viewers. A rerun followed.

NBC and Telemundo tied for fourth in ratings, both with a 0.5/3. NBC was fourth in total viewers with 2.8 million, Telemundo was fifth with 1.4 million.

For NBC, “The Wall” at 8 received a 0.6/3 and 3.5 million viewers. From 9-11 p.m., “American Ninja Warrior” settled for a 0.4/3 and 2.5 million viewers.

Univision was sixth in ratings with a 0.4/2 and in viewers with 1.1 million.

The CW was seventh in ratings with a 0.1/1 and in viewers with 732,000. “Devils” at 8 p.m. had a 0.1/1 and 699,000 viewers. At 9, “Coroner” p.m. got a 0.1/1 and 765,000 viewers.