The Thursday night at 10:00 p.m. time slot hasn’t exactly been a winner for NBC this season, with both The Firm and Prime Suspect delivering unimpressive ratings there. NBC’s promising new series Awake debuted in the spot last night, and fortunately, it already looks like it’s managed to top the previous two dramas.
The Hollywood Reporter posted the news, stating that Awake pulled in a 1.9 rating among adults 18-49, with 6.247 total viewers. This puts it a tenth of a point over Prime Suspect’s debut, and above The Firm’s 1.4 rating for its Sunday premiere. The Reporter notes that Awake was up against reruns of The Mentalist and Jimmy Kimmel Live, however as reruns certainly shouldn’t be underestimated. CBS came in at second place last night with nearly a full set of comedy reruns (Rob was new), beating out NBC’s new episodes in its comedy block. We should probably also take into account the fact that NBC released the premiere episode of Awake online early, which may have resulted in fewer people tuning in last night, having already seen it.
While it’s probably far too soon to start celebrating for Awake, its premiere numbers are promising and hopefully more will tune in next Thursday night. As I mentioned in my review, the show only gets better from there.
Meanwhile, Fox won the night in ratings, thanks to American Idol’s big episode, which revealed the Top 13 contestants for Season 11, to an audience of 18.3 million viewers.
