As a fair warning to any and all TV revivals currently in the works, it's going to be all but impossible to top the increasingly monumental success that Roseanne's comeback has already enjoyed at ABC after just a single week. The already gigantic numbers for the two-episode premiere have already gotten a lot bigger thanks to Live+3 delayed viewing stats, jumping from 18.45 million to 25.04 million viewers. With that boost, Roseanne has actually broken the record for the biggest Live+3 increase for any single telecast on any network. Cue the Conner matriarch's trademark laugh.
At a time when most established TV hits are facing downward spirals, and ratings for new projects are as much of a crapshoot as ever, U.S. audiences were apparently super-duper ready to reconnect with Roseanne and Dan Conner, and all of those characters' friends and family members. Many probably expected Roseanne's initial DVR stats to be impressive, but maybe not "the most impressive three-day DVR stats of all time" impressive. (Big enough to get a personal call from the President.) The premiere's boost of 6.59 million people easily topped the previous record-holder, How to Get Away with Murder, which drew 5.93 belated pairs of eyes after its 2014 series premiere. And considering it took this long to top that total, we likely won't see Roseanne losing its new crown soon. Especially since it's already been renewed for Season 2.
Couple along with that new viewership total is a stunning update to Roseanne's rating in the key 18-49 age demographic. The premiere's Live+Same Day rating was already a whopping 5.1 -- to compare, The Walking Dead and This Is Us tend to top out around a 3.0 demo rating -- and after the Live+3 numbers were tallied, Roseanne's rating jumped up to a 7.2. That 2.1 demo lift is something of a record-breaker itself, as it's the biggest ever delayed boost for a comedy premiere on any network. However, there are currently two episodes of The Big Bang Theory that each earned a 2.3 demo boost in delayed viewing. But I don't think that's any reason for Roseanne's cast and crew not to engage in a round of cheers.
One hard-to-ignore accomplishment embedded in all of this is that Roseanne's DVR stats actually managed to soar higher than those from This Is Us's post-Super Bowl episode, in which Jack's death was finally shown. The NBC drama, which brought in 27 million viewers for that episode, was watched by an additional 5.7 million people in the following days, which ticked its demo rating up by 2.0. Roseanne handily slipped past that, somewhat astonishingly, and we can't wait to see what the Live+7 totals look like. As well as what the second week's numbers amount to.
Roseanne's premiere not only addressed the political angles that potential viewers were skittish about, but it did so without causing much overstated controversy. Fans were just as invested in the current states of these characters' lives as they were in how often Roseanne's narrative would reflect on specific headlines. The largely good-natured word of mouth after the premiere likely played at least a small role in convincing fence-straddlers to go back and give it their time.
Roseanne airs Tuesday nights on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET, and we'll just blindly assume you and a handful of people you know will be tuning in like clockwork. To see what other new and returning shows are on the way, head to our midseason premiere schedule and our summer premiere schedule.
