NBC is off to a competitive start with its two Tuesday newcomers, "For Your Love" and "Lateline."
Both sitcoms premiered March 17 with convincing timeslot wins in adults 18-49 and credible retentions of their lead-ins, though "Lateline" lagged a bit in that department.
At 8:30, "For Your Love" earned a 9.3 rating, 15 share in homes and retained 97% of its 18-49 lead-in from "Mad About You" (10.5/17 in homes), putting it well ahead of slot predecessor "NewsRadio" and its 90% average.
At 9:30, "Lateline" premiered with a 10.2/16 and an 87% retention of its 18-49 lead-in from "Frasier" (12.0/19 in homes). That puts "Lateline" in the range of the 91% retention averaged by previous slot regular "Just Shoot Me," though "Shoot" had improved that average to 95% with its last 10 tries in the slot.
Fox's first try with "The American Comedy Awards" (4.8/8) went home empty-handed, with barely half the rating of the worst ABC tally in the Alphabet's 11 years with the nods (an 8.8/14 in 1997). It was also Fox's lowest-rated Tuesday since Nov. 18.
Each household rating point represents an estimated 980,000 homes, or 1% of the country's tv homes. Each adults 18-49 rating point reps 1.23 million viewers, 1% of the U.S. total. A share is the same sort of percentage, except it measures only the homes or viewers watching tv during the timeslot involved.
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