In the past few years, if you wanted to catch celebrities playing Family Feud, you either had to watch Jimmy Kimmel Live! or Saturday Night Live, unless of course you just decided to watch reruns. But ABC brought the star-fueled game show back to audiences this past weekend for a brief run, and it debuted with a bang, bringing in huge numbers to the network. Survey says: expect to see this approach get broadened in the future.
Celebrity Family Feud debuted on Sunday night following a repeat of America’s Funniest Home Videos and managed to rope in over 8.5 million total viewers, with a 2.4 rating in the coveted demographic of adults aged 18-49. The hour-long telecast put two episodes together, with the audience growing bigger from one half-hour to the next. According to a press release, those numbers were big enough make Celebrity Family Feud the top summer debut for a series since Under the Dome hit CBS in 2013, as well as the highest rated summer debut for an unscripted series since an episode of The Voice in 2011. What’s more, it was ABC’s biggest audience for a summer series in that hour since 2005, and its best young adult audience since 2007.
Considering Celebrity Family Feud only got a lead-in of around 4 million viewers or so, that’s some pretty excellent audience capitalizing. The first half-hour saw the family of Black-ish star Anthony Anderson face off against that of musician Toni Braxton. The second half-hour featured Parenthood’s Monica Potter and her family taking on Top Chef star and celebrity chef Curtis Stone. Take a look at Anderson handling one of the sillier questions with a candid response in the clip below.
Following the return of Celebrity Family Feud was the return of the robot fighting competition BattleBots, which also didn’t do too shabby. It brought in over 5.4 million viewers, and a 1.9 rating with adults 18-49. Now if only we could have watched Anthony Anderson controlling a robot fighting one controlled by Toni Braxton. How is Celebrity BattleBots not a thing yet?
Elsewhere on the dial, Fox brought in over 7.5 million viewers with its extended coverage of the U.S. Open. NBC aired the finale of A.D.: The Bible Continues, which only brought in 3.4 million viewers, while the penultimate episode of American Odyssey had even less, with 2.2 million. The latter was beat out by reruns of both Castle and CSI.
Celebrity Family Feud will be back next Sunday night with Rob Gronkowski and other NFL stars facing off against one another, as well as performers from Dancing with the Stars going up against people from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.
