Given the competition presented by Fox and ABC, NBC may be fighting an uphill battle with its comedies on Wednesday night. NBC's two new comedies premiered to decent ratings last night, but fell far short of what ABC's The Neighbors pulled in with its own premiere following the return of The Middle and Modern Family. And The X-Factor offered even more competition for the Peacock.
The ratings are in and according to EW, The Neighbors did really well for its opening night, bringing in 9.3 million viewers with a 3.3 rating in the adult demo. It seemed likely that the alien-focused sitcom would benefit from its Modern Family lead-in, and so it has. The Emmy winning comedy Modern Family returned to its 9:00 p.m. time slot last night to an audience of 14.2 million viewers with a 5.5 rating.
By comparison to The Neighbors, NBC's new comedies Animal Practice and Guys with Kids fell short with the ratings they brought in for their time-slot premieres. The veterinary comedy Animal Practice, which aired at 8:00 p.m, earned 5.2 million viewers (1.4 rating), while Guys with Kids aired at 8:30 p.m. and took in 4.8 million (1.6 rating). Neither show had to compete with Modern Family, but with ABC's The Middle airing its one-hour season premiere against the new NBC comedies and earning itself 9 million viewers, the ABC family-comedy gave sure as Heck gave the newbies some competition. (Couldn't help myself.) And then there was The X-Factor, which also aired at eight and managed to earn 9.4 million viewers.
Given the more-than-18 million viewers tuning in to Fox and ABC during the hour, NBC's numbers aren't all that bad. It makes me wonder if NBC might try to move the comedies elsewhere to give them a better shot, if they can find room in their line-up.
