Even EMPIRE felt the holiday pinch.

DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary key advertiser demographics (adult 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 ratings), audience skews (women 18-49, men 18-49 and adults 50+ shares) and total viewership (thousands of people over the age of 2).



Ratings analysis and comparisons follow the chart.

FOX: The decision to air a new EMPIRE on the night before Thanksgiving pushed that show to its lowest rating ever by a factor of 0.7, as EMPIRE scored 3.1, down a whopping 1.3 from last week. Remember that although presumably lots of fans taped the show to watch during the holiday weekend, FOX and its advertisers get no benefit from them if they fast-forward through the commercials. (Balanced against that: advertisers may have paid premium prices last night for the pre-Black Friday ads that were actually seen.) The night started with ROSEWOOD, down a relatively mild 0.3 to 1.2.

NBC: Does the 0.6 for THE MAKING OF “THE WIZ” LIVE suggest that next week’s musical will be closer to PETER PAN’s 2.4 than THE SOUND OF MUSIC’s 4.6? It tied PETER’s “making of” special, with both 0.4 below MUSIC’s. It was followed by a SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE clip show at 1.1.

CBS: A pre-holiday berth also did SURVIVOR no favors, with a 0.3 drop to 1.8 that was a new series low. That was, however, a better lead-in for CODE BLACK than last week’s CRIMINAL MINDS, and the combination of that and the lack of CHICAGO PD on NBC gave BLACK a 0.2 boost to 1.4.

ABC: Reruns, led a bit surprisingly not by MODERN FAMILY (1.2) but by THE MIDDLE (1.3).

CW: A run of PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES was at 0.4.

The intricacies of the NFL’s rights deals puts THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL on NBC for the holiday, while ABC and CW are in rerun mode and FOX airs THE ALL-STAR DOG RESCUE CELEBRATION. Only CBS will put its standard Thursday schedule on the air.

COMPARISONS TO SIMILAR NIGHTS: Preliminary adult 18-49 ratings versus the same night last year and same night last week.

CABLE RATINGS: Come back Monday afternoon for detailed demographic ratings for top cable programs from this day, a much later than normal delivery because of the ratings delays caused by Thanksgiving weekend.

While you are waiting for the cable numbers to resume, check out the new Audience Maps for all the fall broadcast shows.

###