CTV’s new-look Thursday night line-up killed it during premiere week.
The debut of How to Get Away with Murder attracted 2.4 million viewers in the 10 p.m. timeslot according to overnight data from Numeris, just nosing out another big CTV premiere, Gotham, which attracted 2.37 million viewers in its 8 p.m. Monday timeslot.
The season premiere of Grey’s Anatomy, the other big show from screenwriter/producer/director Shonda Rhimes show on CTV’s Thursday schedule, garnered 1.8 million viewers at 8 p.m.
Saving Hope garnered 1.2 million viewers in its regular Thursday 9 p.m. timeslot, a 10% increase from its Monday premiere.
How to Get Away with Murder is one of the handful of new shows predicted to be a breakout hit by media agency Media Experts in its annual preview of the new Fall season, joining the Global Television shows Madam Secretary (which attracted 1.37 million viewers to its Sept. 21 premiere) and State of Affairs, which debuts Nov. 17.
In its assessment of How to Get Away with Murder, Media Experts said that the show will have more legs than Shomi’s other network hit Scandal (which airs on City), while noting that star Viola Davis (The Help) is a “commanding presence” in a “riveting drama that twists and turns.” The show is also helped by a favourable timeslot, said the Media Experts prediction.
Media Experts said that Madam Secretary – which stars Teo Leoni as the U.S. Secretary of State – fits into a Sunday night schedule filled with shows boasting strong female leads (including Global’s own The Good Wife). “Good balance of work and home life, shades of West Wing meets Hilary Clinton,” said the Media Experts assessment. “HIT material.”
Media Experts pegged Gotham – which traces the origins of superhero Batman – as a “survivor,” calling it “gritty, grounded yet still decidedly comic-book-based” show that will perform well in its 8 p.m. Monday timeslot.
The agency was less enthusiastic in its assessment of several of this season’s new sitcoms, including City’s Black-Ish (“It won’t last beyond the first commercial break, if it even makes it to air at all.”); Global’s Marry Me (“Contrived and stereotypical. Won’t last the first season”); CTV’s The McCarthys (“Painful to watch. Please kill this before it goes to air”) and Global’s Mulaney (“Overly scripted and fake. Performances are wooden and forced. Just bad, bad, bad”).
Overall, Media Experts predicts that 14 of the 20 new fall shows will survive.
Last year it predicted 15 of the 19 survivors and 16 of the 23 misses for a success rate of 75%. The misses included the sitcoms Brooklyn Nine-Nine (“How did this show win a Golden Globe. No one is watching it”), The Millers (“Who can stand all that screaming and arguing?”) and The Goldbergs (“Who would have thought the ‘80s could be so fascinating to millennials!”) and the drama Sleepy Hollow (“A very clever social component got this show off to a head start and kept it there”).
