'Supergirl' soars with women as well as men

Gary Levin | USA TODAY

Supergirl has girl power.

Maybe it's the title. Maybe it's that female viewers are hungering for female superheroes.

But the latest comics-inspired TV series has an audience that's nearly evenly split between men and women. That's a rarity in the male-dominated superhero genre. By contrast, 60% of the adult TV audience for CW's The Flash is male, as are 57% of viewers for Fox's Gotham, which airs opposite Supergirl (Mondays, 8 p.m. ET/PT).

The only other comic-book series to have nearly equal numbers of men and women is the last to feature a female lead: Marvel's Agent Carter, which aired last winter on ABC and returns early 2016. A third, Marvel's Jessica Jones, arrives Nov. 20 on Netflix, but the streaming site doesn't share information about how many viewers (and of which gender) are watching.

"There is such a limited supply of female superheroes, it would be very appealing for women to watch," says Brad Adgate, analyst at ad firm Horizon Media. A show that can "attract both genders, a dual audience, bodes well for its success."

Supergirl herself may be 24, but Supergirl also attracts the oldest audience among costumed crime-fighters, with a median age of 56, compared with 41.9 for The Flash and about 47 for Gotham and ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. That's likely a function of the show's home on senior-friendly CBS, where it's the youngest-skewing and most evenly gender-split drama. (About 54% of prime-time TV watchers are women.)

But producers say the series, lighter and less mythology-driven than many of its counterparts, is aimed at everyone.

"It really is our goal to make a show where there is something for everyone, so it's nice to see against some strong competition that there are all kinds of people checking it out," says executive producer Greg Berlanti, who's also behind CW's Arrow and The Flash. "Obviously, it's our hope they keep doing that and tell their friends and family. My favorite emails and tweets I get are still the ones where different generations from the same family are watching and enjoying it together."

Supergirl, which stars Melissa Benoist in the title role, premiered Oct. 26 with 13 million viewers, but fell about 30% last week, when it no longer followed TV's top comedy, The Big Bang Theory. But it still ranked as the top superhero series. A third episode airs Monday night.

Show (Network) % male % female Median age

Supergirl (CBS) 51 49 56.0

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC) 53 47 46.9

Gotham (Fox) 57 43 47.2

Arrow (CW) 58 42 42.9

The Flash (CW) 60 40 41.9

Percentage of adult viewership among men and women for current-season episodes, and median age of all viewers.

Source: Nielsen