The Bachelorette made its grand return to ABC on Monday, and the series took a hit in the ratings.
The Bachelorette Season 19 Episode 1 managed 2.7 million viewers and a 0.60 rating in the demo.
Last year, the series launched with a stronger 3 million viewers and a 0.80 rating in the demo.
Granted, drops in the vicinity of 10 to 15% are expected for returning shows, but ABC is clearly betting big on the franchise as a whole.
All shows in that franchise tend to have strong post-airdate viewing, so time will tell if more people simply don’t view it as appointment viewing anymore.
Possibly contributing to the lower ratings is that the series has two leads this season, making for a messier show than before.
New unscripted offering Claim to Fame managed 1.8 million viewers and a 0.3 rating in the demo — not bad for cheap summer programming.
ABC has found it difficult finding shows that resonate out of its stronger shows.
Over on NBC, American Ninja Warrior had 2.7 million viewers and a 0.3 rating.
The CW’s canceled Roswell, New Mexico had 456,000 viewers and a 0.1 rating.
These numbers are on par with some of the shows that landed renewals on the network.
In The Dark followed with 296,000 viewers and a 0.0 rating.
The rest of the night was filled with encores, including NCIS (3 million), which was the most-watched show of the night.
What did you watch, TV Fanatics?
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Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.
