Allison Williams wasn't the only one tempting gravity on Thursday night. With its second live musical production, NBC was clearly trying to hold onto as much of the inaugural outing's gargantuan ratings hall as possible.
So how did Peter Pan shape up compared to The Sound of Music? Not quite as strong. Per metered market returns, the three-hour stage production averaged a 5.9 rating among households. That's just more than half of what Music did last year with a 10.9 rating. (Its share was similarly cut in half.)
Looking back at last year, facing very similar competition, The Sound of Music ultimately pulled 18.5 million viewers and a 4.6 rating among adults 18-49. NBC was considerably more bullish with advertisers on this round, buoyed by the surprise hit status of The Sound of Music, but few expected Peter Pan to exceed the original.
NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt offered a statement on the numbers early Friday: "We're very pleased with the Peter Pan ratings and it was a great night for NBC. We won every hour, which hasn't happened on Thursday with entertainment programming since a year ago. I'm proud to be part of a company that takes chances and creates big events, and that's exactly what we're going to continue to do. We didn’t expect to reach the same rating as The Sound of Music since that was the first live movie event of its kind in over 50 years. But the high wire act of Peter Pan was a joy for everyone involved and I take my hat off to Allison Williams, Christopher Walken, the entire company, and our incredible directors and producers for three months of the hardest work I've ever seen. I love these live events and we're already working on putting the next one together."
For its part, Peter Pan did fall only just shy of The Sound of Music in being the network's second-highest rating for a non-sports Thursday in more than two years.
