‘American Ninja Warrior’ Opens Down But Dominant On Wednesday

NBC’s regular-slot season premiere of American Ninja Warrior (1.0 rating in the adults 18-49 demograpic, 4.80 million viewers) was Wednesday’s No. 1 program in primetime, taking 8-10 PM in both metrics, though it opened down two tenths in the demo and about 600,000 in total viewers from its last launch.

After Ninja Warrior, NBC’s premiere of The InBetween (0.6, 3.69M) won its slot among broadcast networks in demo and total viewers, matching the highest rating for a premiering Big 4 summer drama series since Midnight, Texas in July 2017.

Fox’s MasterChef Season 10 premiere (0.8, 3.10M) dropped two tenths in the demo compared to its year-ago launch in same slot on same night.

Facing premieres of Ninja Warrior and MasterChef, CBS’ 8 PM The Amazing Race (0.8, 4.77M) slowed by a tenth in the demo. After which, the network’s third-season premiere of renamed NCIS: The Cases They Can’t Forget, formerly 48 Hours: NCIS, (0.4, 3.73M), dipped a tenth in the demo at 9 PM.

With no Norman Lear competition this week, the CW’s 8 PM My Last Days (0.2, 668K) showed signs of life, doubling last week’s season-premiere rating and growing 44% in total viewers.

At 9 PM, CW’s Jane the Virgin (0.2, 555K) rounded to the same demo rating, week to week, but grew 74K in total viewers.

NBC (0.9, 4.43M) ranked No. 1 for the night in both metrics, leading all six primetime half-hours in the demo among the Big 4. Fox (0.8, 2.71M) followed most closely in the demo, but CBS (0.5, 3.94M) was No. 2 in total viewers. CBS tied ABC (0.5, 2.47M) for third place in the demo. CW (0.2, 612K) followed.