NBC had a full night of Law & Order action on Thursdays for a few seasons, but that’s no longer the case as of the start of the 2024-2025 TV season. While Christopher Meloni will be back as Elliot Stabler for Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5, the Law & Order: SVU spinoff will release episodes streaming for fans with a Peacock subscription starting at some point in the 2025 TV schedule. With Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s Found replacing OC on Thursday night, it’s worth checking out the ratings for NBC’s remaining two L&O shows to see how they did in the fall without Stabler at 10 p.m. ET.
According to ratings and audience numbers from TVLine, NBC’s corner of the nine-show Dick Wolf TV universe continues to dominate among the network’s scripted series. SVU ranks fourth behind the three shows of One Chicago, with an average audience size of 5.6 million viewers across seven days and a rating in the 18-49 age demographic of 0.65. Law & Order is a bit lower in the outlet’s numbers, coming in seventh with an average audience of 4.83 million and rating of 0.45.
Obviously we don’t have any recent numbers for Organized Crime, since it has yet to return following the spring finale that brought its NBC run full circle, and streaming ratings aren’t calculated the same way as network television. The totals for the other two shows do indicate that while SVU is tied as the #2 rated drama on broadcast TV, Mariska Hargitay’s series is down 18% in audience size from Season 25. As for Law & Order, Season 24’s audience is down 26% from the spring season.
Does this mean that Law & Order and SVU’s numbers have been negatively affected by NBC giving up on three-hour Law & Order Thursdays? Of course not, as there are plenty of variables to be considered. In fact, both Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D. – which respectively rank as the network’s #1 and #3 most-watched fall shows – also dipped in their audience totals from the 2023-2024 season to the 2024-2025 season so far.
Would ratings have gotten a boost if the fall season had delivered a crossover between SVU and OC to reunite Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni on screen, as many fans have hoped? Probably for at least that week, but we just can’t say with any certainty what could be different if Organized Crime had returned to primetime instead of being reserved for Peacock in 2025.
For what it’s worth, Found – a.k.a. OC’s replacement on Thursdays – is down 13% in audience size with 3.9 million on average from its previous slot on Tuesday nights, and down more than 20% from the numbers averaged by OC. If anything, Found may be suffering more as the replacement for Organized Crime than either SVU or Law & Order.
Still, I find the numbers interesting, and will definitely keep an eye on them in the new year once Law & Order: Organized Crime finally debuts Season 5… assuming that happens before the end of SVU Season 26 and L&O Season 24, anyway. In the meantime, you can revisit earlier episodes of all three shows streaming on Peacock, and look forward to the NBC returns on Thursday, January 16 in their usual time slots.
