Friday TV ratings: Proven Innocent falls, comedy up [Mar. 8]

Friday night can be hit and miss with the ratings and Mar. 8 was no different. As Proven Innocent and The Blacklist fell, comedy shows went up or remained steady in the Friday TV ratings this week.

Some weeks, drama does better than comedy. During other weeks, like this week’s Friday TV ratings, the comedy fairs better. Mar. 8 saw the likes of Proven Innocent and The Blacklist fall, while Fresh Off the Boat, Last Man Standing, and more comedies held steady or rose in the ratings.

Starting at 8 p.m., the CBS special, The Gayle King Interview with R. Kelly, took the top spot. Pulling in 6.60 million viewers and a 1.2 demo, it held against all other shows in the network in that timeslot. However, it wasn’t the winner of the night in the total audience — it was in the demo.

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Last Man Standing and Fresh Off the Boat came in next for the 8 p.m. slot, both seeing a 5% increase in the demo to 1.0 and 0.6 respectively. While Last Man Standings‘s total viewers dropped, it was a negligible amount. Fresh Off the Boat rose by 5% to pull in 3.09 million people.

Blindspot managed to take third place in the total audience, though, with 3.15 million (and an 8% increase). The demo was down 5%, though, sitting at 0.5.

For the second half-hour of comedies, FOX faired well with The Cool Kids seeing a 1% increase in the demo but a 4% decrease in the total audience. ABC’s Speechless managed to hold steady but it may be too little too late for the comedy.

Photo Credit: Hawaii Five-0/CBS Image Acquired from CBS Press Express /

In the 9 p.m. slot, CBS was the winner again. This time Hawaii Five-0 pulled in a 13% increase from its previous episode in the demo to 0.9 and the total audience was up 3% to 7.24 million to the second highest of the whole night. All other shows in that hour block saw double-digit decreases. The most worrying decreases are going to be Proven Innocent, which dropped to a series low in both metrics, and The Blacklist, which dropped to a series low in the demo.

Blue Bloods took the top spot of the night in the total audience, pulling in just more than eight million eyeballs. This may have been down 7% but it’s nothing to worry about for this long-running series. I suspect that as long as Tom Selleck is happy on the series, it will be renewed. The demo was up 8% anyway.

Dateline increased by 3% in the demo but dipped 9% in the total audience. This is a show that’s consistently up and down in the ratings and it’s more to do with the subject than the actual show, so I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.

Check out the full TV ratings for Mar. 8.

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