TV Ratings: ‘The Bachelorette’ Premiere Matches Last Season Despite Stiff NFL Competition

After several months of coronavirus production delays, “The Bachelorette” season 16 finally premiered on Tuesday night and managed to match its previous season, despite facing abnormally stiff competition from a one-off (or potentially not depending on COVID-19 complications) NFL game on CBS.

The ABC dating show debuted to a 1.3 rating among adults 18-49 (down a hair on season 15) and 4.8 million total viewers, exactly the same tally as last year. It should be pointed out that “Bachelorette” typically airs in the summer, so ABC will likely hope for a boost from delayed to push it past last season given its new fall positioning. Right afterwards, a new “Celebrity Family Feud” came in with a 0.6 rating and 3.2 million viewers.

However, overall the night was dominated by the NFL game between the Tennessee Titans and the Buffalo Bills. The game, which resulted in a blow out 42-16 win for the Titans, drew just under 10 million viewers for CBS and notched a 2.7 rating. Given the nature of live sports, those numbers are subject to significant adjustment and will be updated later in the day. “FBI Declassified” followed it up with a 0.9 rating and 3.9 million viewers.

“Weakest Link” also struggled up against the football on NBC, ticking down from a 0.8 rating to a 0.6 this time around, but retaining all of its 4 million viewers from the week prior. “Ellen’s Game of Games” fell 43% from last week’s season premiere to a 0.4 rating and 2.8 million viewers. “Transplant” rounded off the night with a 0.3 and 2.8 million.

Over on Fox, new drama “Next” retained 100% of its rating from premiere, coming in at a 0.3 and 1.5 million viewers. A new episode of “Cosmos” followed that with a 0.3 rating and 1.2 million viewers.

“Swamp Thing” scored a 0.2 rating and around 800,000 viewers for CW, followed by the premiere of “Tell Me A Story,” which delivered a 0.1 and just under 500,000 viewers.

Univision and Telemundo both averaged a 0.3 rating across the night, with “Todo Por Mi Hija” scoring a 0.4 rating and 1.3 million viewers for the latter.

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