9-1-1 finally returned to primetime in the 2024 TV schedule, but the Season 7 premiere didn't air on Fox like the previous six seasons. The show's original network cancelled it back in 2023, only for ABC to immediately pick it up for the seventh season. The new network built plenty of hype by previewing a cruise ship crisis for Bobby and Athena, and now the ratings are in to confirm how many people tuned in on ABC after the move from Fox. Plus, star Peter Krause opened up about the show's upcoming 100-episode milestone!
How 9-1-1 Is Doing In The Ratings
Only one episode of 9-1-1 has aired on ABC at the time of writing, but the numbers for the Season 7 premiere with its terrifying challenge for Peter Krause are already promising. In the Live+Same day totals, the first episode of Season 7 earned an audience of 4.93 million viewers and 0.6 rating in the key 18-49 age demographic (via TVLine). Not only are those solid numbers, but they're improvements on last season.
Via SpoilerTV, the Season 6 finale of 9-1-1 back in May 2023 on Fox reached an audience of 4.3 million viewers and a demo rating of 0.55. That suggests that existing fans followed the show over the ABC as well as that ABC's promotion for the premiere successfully attracted some new viewers. In fact, the first episode of 2024 reached the show's highest number's since the tenth episode of Season 6, which was the spring premiere with a shocking twist.
And that's not all! 9-1-1's arrival on ABC's Thursday nights bumped Station 19 from the 8 p.m. ET time slot before Grey's Anatomy to the 10 p.m. ET time slot after Grey's Anatomy. While that might have been inconvenient for viewers of Station 19's final season, it has already paid off for the network. 9-1-1 improved 26% in the audience size and 20% in the ratings over Station 19 in the 8 p.m. slot last season, earning ABC its biggest audience since February 2022. So, even though it's early, all signs point toward 9-1-1 as a winning addition to the network's lineup.
What Peter Krause Told Us About The 100-Episode Milestone
The timing could hardly be better for 9-1-1 to get a big win, and not just because the Season 7 premiere was its ABC debut. The hit drama is only a few episodes shy of hitting 100, which is certainly worth celebrating for the cast... even if Bobby and Athena might not have much to celebrate over the next couple weeks.
When I spoke with Peter Krause about the new season, he opened up about what it has been like to reach a major milestone despite challenges right after making the move to a new network:
It's been a blur from one emergency to the next. When we had our 100th episode celebration, we had fifteen minutes to have some cake and went back to work, but the emergencies were rattled off. Some of them I'd forgotten about, and how crazy the various emergencies had been over the last six years and counting. But it was nice to recognize the milestone of 100 episodes, but it really was right back to work.
The emergencies haven't only been on screen for 9-1-1 since its premiere in early 2018. The first few seasons seemingly went as smoothly as could be hoped, before the COVID-19 pandemic more or less shut down the entertainment industry for months and delayed Season 4. Then, the show was cancelled (albeit briefly) in 2023, and then production couldn't begin due to the WGA writers strike and SAG-AFTRA actors strike.
These complications could have easily been the end of a network TV show, especially one as pricy as 9-1-1. Cost was reportedly one of the reasons behind the Fox cancellation and ABC pickup. 9-1-1 has survived and is clearly going strong into the 100-episode milestone. There are still a few episodes left before that, however, and the second of Season 7 looks like a doozy, going by the trailer:
See new episodes of 9-1-1 on Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, with the cruise crisis continuing during the next two for Bobby and Athena. The whole team is making strong progress on Season 7, as Peter Krause confirmed when we spoke ahead of the premiere that they "just cracked open episode six." If you missed the Season 7 premiere, you can find it streaming now with a Hulu subscription!
