It was probably too much to hope that Community would manage to maintain its decent season premiere numbers for its second episode. The ratings are in for last night's primetime and Community's rating was noticeably down from last week's Season 4 premiere. Apparently, there just aren't a lot of people up for a Halloween themed episode on Valentine's Day. Go figure!
EW posted the numbers, stating that Community earned 2.7 million viewers and a 1.1 rating among adults 18-49, which is a 42% drop from last week's premiere. It's also the show's lowest rated episode ever in the demo. Was it the Halloween theme that turned viewers off? Or did the premiere episode last week confirm to some that the show just isn't the same without Dan Harmon? Or maybe it was just a bad night. We'll have to wait and see how next week's episode does and whether this drop is a fluke or an unfortunate trend.
It's possible that some put Community on hold to check out ABC's new drama Zero Hour, which stars Anthony Edwards and premiered at 8:00 p.m. to an audience of 6.3 million viewers and a 1.3 rating in the 18-49 demo. It's not an amazing start for the series. In fact, it's ABC's lowest-rated in-season premiere ever for a scripted show, but with American Idol (12.3 million) and The Big Bang Theory (17.6 million) as its competition, that may be about as good as the show can expect in that time slot.
Meanwhile, Scandal is holding strong with its higher ratings. The ABC drama series has seen a noticeable ratings increase in the later part of its second season, and brought in about 8 million viewers last night. The show's growing popularity may be attributed (at least partially) to ABC making the series available on Netflix last fall. Those of us who fell behind on Season 1 last year were able to get caught up on the series throughout the fall, which could account for some of the ratings increase. Scandal's 2.8 rating for last night's episode puts it a tenth of a point ahead of Grey's Anatomy, which earned a few more viewers (8.37 million) but a rating of 2.7 among 18-49.
