ABC's Thursday night was a little less formidable without its third Shonda Rhimes-produced drama last night. With How to Get Away With Murder ending its freshman run last week, newcomer (and critical favorite) American Crime moved into the 10 p.m. slot to more modest results.
With an average 2.0 rating among adults 18-49 and 8.4 million viewers, American Crime lost a third of the demo score Scandal earned in the previous hour — though its viewer retention was much more impressive. It was still enough to easily top the hour across broadcast.
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Thursdays have been getting awfully crowded on the drama front. With NBC now opting to air three back-to-back, like ABC, Fox will soon have two once Bones returns to the schedule. That's nine in one night on the Big Four alone.
Elsewhere on ABC, Scandal (3.0 adults) returned from its week off down three-tenths of a point. Grey's Anatomy (2.4 adults) was improved by two-tenths of a point.
The Big Bang Theory (4.7 adults) grew two-tenths of a point on CBS — though that was not quite as impressive as The Odd Couple's promising two-tenths spike of its own. The freshman comedy pulled a 3.0 rating among adults 18-49 in its third outing. Mom (2.2 adults) was steady and Elementary (1.3 adults) fell two-tenths.
Both American Idol (2.1 adults) and Backstrom (1.0 adults) were steady with their recent showings on Fox.
Between steady episodes of The Slap and Allegiance, each of which pulled just a 0.8 rating in the key demo, Blacklist tied its series low in live-plus-same day showings with a 1.7 rating among adults 18-49.
