With the 2016 Fall TV season now in its second week and many new shows having had premiered, CTV and Global Television are both touting the new additions to their schedule.
According to media management firm Media Experts, 36 new shows will premiere as part of the new fall line-up, led by Global with nine, CTV with six, City with four and CBC with three.
Global said that 1.3 million people 2+ tuned in for the Sept. 19 series premiere of the Kevin James comedy Kevin Can Wait, making it the network’s most-watched new comedy premiere in five years.
Dismissed as “#KingOfQueensWithKids” by Media Experts in its annual fall TV predictions, Kevin Can Wait stars Kevin James in his first TV role since The King of Queens went off the air in 2009. James stars as a retired police officer who quickly realizes his retirement isn’t going to go as planned.
Global’s Tuesday night drama Bull – loosely based on the early career of TV’s Dr. Phil McGraw and dubbed a “survivor” by Media Experts – attracted more than 2 million viewers for its premiere.
Global said that Bull’s 2+ ratings were 71% greater than CTV’s hotly-tipped This is Us, while strong ratings for both NCIS and NCIS: New Orleans helped it win Tuesday with nearly double the audience of CTV.
Elsewhere, Global’s unstoppable reality series Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X attracted 1.6 million viewers 2+ on Wednesday, increasing its year-over-year 18-34 audience by 16%, while also posting increases in both the adult 18-49 (+9%) and adult 25-54 (+13%) demos.
Another new series Pitch, which follows the first female to play Major League Baseball, attracted 1.1 million viewers on Thursday, beating the CTV newcomer Notorious – which has garnered a pitiful score of 32% on the ratings aggregator Metacritic.com but earned “survivor” designation from Media Experts.
Bell Media countered with its own release on Monday claiming that a week’s worth of data (live plus six days of playback) shows that CTV’s perennial ratings champ The Big Bang Theory ranked first in total viewers for the week with 2.4 million, while This Is Us was the top new series among millennials.
CTV said that last Tuesday’s premiere episode of This is Us attracted 1.8 million total viewers, driving double-digit growth in total viewers and across all key demos in the 10 p.m. timeslot compared with last year.
This is Us’ YouTube trailer has garnered nearly 9 million views and the drama is one of just two English-language shows predicted to be a “hit” by Media Experts, which says that limited competition in the timeslot means it could be poised to become the next Parenthood. It joins another CTV show, the Kiefer Sutherland drama Designated Survivor on Media Experts’ “hit” list.
Bell also claimed that its Monday night line-up was home to three of the night’s top four programs, with Lucifer and Gotham attracting 1.8 million and 1.4 million viewers respectively.
According to Media Experts, 36 new shows will premiere as part of the new fall line-up, led by Global with nine, CTV with six, Rogers Media-owned City with four and CBC with three.
