It’s a jungle out there in terms of Summer TV Nielsen ratings.
CBS’ “Zoo” didn’t fare well in the heat last year, when the drama dropped from a 1.6 rating among adults 18-49 to a 1.1. In terms of total viewers, the series sank from an average of 8.889 million per episode to 5.885 million.
Those are declines of 31 percent and 34 percent, respectively, and they include one-week’s worth of delayed viewing. The numbers were enough to make “Zoo” the No. 2 scripted series of the summer, but let’s just say there aren’t many more than a few of those anyway.
The pair of existing season premieres themselves followed roughly the same pattern as the season averages. The following numbers do not include delayed viewing, which will offer us the quickest comparison for the show’s return tonight.
On June 30, 2015, the series debut of “Zoo” posted a 1.2 and 8.175 million viewers. On June 30, 2016, the sophomore run’s start received a 0.8 and 5.131 million viewers.
Those numbers mean “Zoo” lost exactly one-third of its audience from the advertiser-coveted demographic and 37 percent in terms of overall eyeballs. Here, we should point out that in 2015, “Zoo” debuted with a typical 60-minute episode. Last year’s return lasted an hour longer, which means it ran later and had more minutes to average out. Neither tends to help.
So what will “Zoo” exhibit in ratings go when it returns Thursday for Season 3? Odds are the tune-in tally won’t be as cute as a panda.
At the very least, CBS would like to at least avoid a series low out of its comeback. To do so, “Zoo” will have to top a 0.6 rating and 3.603 million viewers, some particularly rough numbers that the show suffered on Aug. 9, 2016. To be fair, however, that night’s primetime had the Summer Olympics to contend with over on NBC — this year has a far-softer schedule.
Fortunately, “Zoo” won’t have to compete Track & Field again until 2020. Of course, at this rate, the once highly-anticipated drama may not even make it to 2018. In the interim, CBS isn’t exactly going bankrupt over this particular series’ lackluster performance among advertisers: “Zoo” essentially pays for itself with Netflix and international deals.