Elementary Loses Post-Game Audiences Due To Late Start

Last night, the Super Bowl scored giant ratings for CBS, bringing in big numbers for the network. Unfortunately, those good numbers didn’t extend to CBS’ post-game viewing of Elementary. The episode drew in fewer Super Bowl numbers than any other Super Bowl post-game programming in the last nine years.

This isn’t the fault of CBS’ program not being up to par. Instead, it’s more of a timing issue. The Super Bowl airs on a Sunday night, which means most adults have work scheduled the following morning and most school-aged children have to go to class. Unfortunately, the blackout caused a 34-minute delay of game last night, meaning Elementary did not have the opportunity to air on CBS until 11:15 p.m. ET. That’s a little late for school children and working individuals to start watching an hour-long episode of television.

I wouldn't go so far as to say Elementary did shabbily in the timeslot. Luckily, it was still early on the West Coast and, according to EW, the episode brought in 20.8 million total viewers, which is extremely good for a series that normally brings in roughly half those numbers. Additionally, Elementary earned a 7.8 rating in the 18-49 advertising demographic. The episode will definitely beef up Elementary’s season average, and is the highest-rated adult demo telecast to air thus far in 2013, so the numbers aren’t so bad. Still, if we are going to compare, last year’s post-game episode of The Voice did 37.6 million viewers on NBC.

If you are more interested in seeing how the big game did, we have those numbers available as well.