Friday Ratings: CBS Tops The Night Despite No Basketball Boost

No NCAA basketball on CBS this Friday? No problem, said the eye network, which managed to retain its top spot on the evening despite the lack of ratings-boosting hoops contests.

Instead of Duke’s Zion Williamson, CBS has a lineup led by a new MacGyver, which scored a 0.6/4 and 5.64 million total audience, a tick down from its previous 0.7. But that warmup led into the night’s two top performers, Hawaii Five-0 (0.8/4, 6.72 million) and Blue Bloods (0.8/4 and 7.85 million), both down a tick from previous weeks, but still topping the night.

That helped CBS breeze to the throne as the night’s lead network, tallying an overall 0.7/4 and 7.53 million.

ABC’s Fresh Off The Boat jumped up to a 0.6/4 and 3.07 million, with Speechless also up a tick to 0.5/3 and 2.30 million. Newsmag 20/20 held at its previous 0.7/4 and 3.88 million for its two-hour episode.

Blindspot was moving up for NBC, gaining a tick to 0.5/3 and 3.28 million to lead off that network’s night. The Blacklist held firm at 0.6/3 3.42 million, while Dateline made a big jump to 0.6/3 and 3.56 million from its former 0.4.

At Fox, a re-run of Last Man Standing had an 0.6/3 and 3.13 million viewers, but the good news for the network was sitcom The Cool Kids scoring an 0.7/4 and 3.42 million audience even with a weaker lead-in up from its previous 0.6. That didn’t help legal drama Proven Innocent though, which had an 0.4/2 and 1.82 million.

The CW saw the series finale of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend at 0.1/1 and 0.46 million, with concert special Yes, It’s Really Us Singing nailing an 0.1.