“Young Sheldon” is top of the class for Thursday’s primetime programming, catapulting CBS to its largest audience of the season for a second consecutive week, per Nielsen live plus same-day ratings figures. The sixth season of the “The Big Bang Theory” prequel posts an average viewership of 7.7 million and also captured its largest fast affiliate numbers since Jan. 20, 2022.
The comedy series, which is already renewed through at least 2024 and stars Iain Armitage as the title socially awkward child-genius, also won in the 18-49 demographic, averaging 0.68. The program also easily beat the runner-up in its timeslot at 8 p.m., which was a rerun of “Law & Order” on NBC, with more than 4 million watchers.
Overall, “Young Sheldon” led the network to a primetime Thursday night win, with an average demo of 0.48 and 5.5 million average viewers. The title also kicked off a night of continued success and strong numbers for the network, which bested last week’s high figures across the board for subsequent programs “Ghosts,” “So Help Me Todd” and “CSI: Vegas.”
At 8:30 and 9 p.m., “Ghosts” and “So Help Me Todd” also posted season-best audiences, at an average of nearly 7 million and 5.3 million, respectively. Meanwhile, at 10 p.m., “CSI: Vegas” posted its second-best audience of the season, with an average viewership of 3.8 million. All programs won in their respective time periods, in both audience and demo figures. On average, “Ghosts” netted 0.63 in the demo, while “So Help Me Todd” received 0.44 and “CSI: Vegas” closed out the evening with 0.35.
Per fast affiliate figures from the week prior, CBS was No. 1 for the night across primetime, with “Ghosts” averaging 6.82 million viewers at 8:30 p.m. and becoming Thursday’s No. 2 program. At 9 p.m., “So Help Me Todd” also posted its best fast nationals audience ever, with 5.09 million viewers, up 6% from its last original episode, which aired Jan. 12. “Young Sheldon” drew an average 7.15 million viewers to clinch the title of No. 1 show of the night and was up from its season-to-date average, posting its second-largest audience of the season. At 10 p.m., “CSI: Vegas” won its hour with 3.74 million average watchers, netting its highest fast national audience of the season. (At 3.64 million in fast affiliate numbers, “CSI: Vegas” was slightly down this week).
Other notable primetime programming for Thursday night included NBC’s special airing of the NFL Honors, held in Phoenix, which garnered an average audience of 2.6 million and 0.39 rating at 9 p.m. On ABC, there was a special double airing of “The Parent Test,” which aired two episodes beginning at 8 p.m. for its semi-finals. Those broadcasts drew demo scores of 0.32 and 0.29, respectively, along with average audiences of nearly 2 million and 1.7 million, each.
