'Scandal' sets series viewing record in premiere

Bill Keveney | USA TODAY

Steamy Scandal is gaining heat.

Thursday's third-season premiere of ABC's Kerry Washington drama attracted a series-high 10.5 million viewers, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings.

The Scandal premiere, which featured fallout from the revelation of Olivia Pope's (Washington) affair with the president (Tony Goldwyn), was up 57% in viewers and an even larger 71% in young adults compared to last fall's opener. It enjoyed its biggest growth to date out of Grey's Anatomy (9.4 million, up 1% from last week's two-hour premiere), topping its lead-in by 12% in viewers and 20% in young adults.

On the social-media front, Scandal scored a series-high and evening-high 712,877 tweets, up 714% from last season's premiere and 22% from May's season finale.

In the battle of comedy stars, the second episode of Robin Williams' The Crazy Ones on CBS (11.8 million) was down 24% from last week, but it stomped the premiere of NBC's Sean Hayes comedy, Sean Saves the World (4.9 million). The Michael J. Fox Show (5.9 million), now in its regular NBC time slot, was down 21% from last week but built on Hayes' lead-in.

Both Crazy and a new CBS comedy, The Millers (13.2 million), benefited by following Thursday's most-watched show, The Big Bang Theory (17.8 million, down 6% from its performance in the same time slot last week). Hayes and Fox, by contrast, built on their lead-ins, getting no help from Parks and Recreation (3.5 million, up 6% from last week) and the premiere of Welcome to the Family (3.3 million) earlier in the evening.