There is no doubt in my mind FX premiered a strong comedy block last night, pitting the easy laughs of the Charlie Sheen-led Anger Management with the twisted and weird Wilfred and then following that up with the exceptionally funny Louie and the wacky Russell Brand’s Brand X pop culture chat show. Before last night’s premiere, I was a bit worried the varietal nature of the block would not help it to keep holdover viewers from one program to another, but after last night’s premieres, the format seems to be working.
Anger Management, as expected, led the night on the network, pulling 5.47 million in total viewers during last night’s season premiere at 9 p.m. ET. FX has been great with advertising for the series and Sheen’s fame also likely led viewers to the network for the first episode. The next challenge will be maintaining viewers in the coming weeks. If the numbers remain remotely as strong, I would not be surprised to hear FX renewing the series before its 10-episode run concludes.
Later in the night, Louie and Wilfred’s season premieres also crushed. According to TV By The Numbers, Wilfred up 71% from its Season 1 average at 2.53 million total viewers and Louie also knocking the ratings out of the park with numbers up 55% from Season 2. As a whole, season premieres are generally up from the season average, but those numbers are still pretty impressive and indicate awareness of the comedies are growing. Some of these viewers may have been Anger Management holdovers, but if even a few decide to stick around in the coming weeks, that will still improve numbers on both shows.
Last but not least, Brand X premiered last night and pulled in 1.1 million total viewers at 11 p.m. ET. The numbers don’t lie, people; editor Kelly West stated before last night’ s premiere, the block had a little bit of everything, and it seems like a little bit of everyone is tuning in.
