Friday Ratings: Just Over 5-Million Viewers For the Most-Watched Network, CBS

Friday 4/02/21 Preliminary Primetime Ratings  

Total Viewers:
CBS: 5.08 million, ABC: 2.83, NBC: 2.68, Fox: 2.04, CW: 658,000

Adults 18-49:
ABC, CBS and Fox: 0.5 rating/4 share each, NBC: 0.3/ 2, CW: 0.1/ 1

CBS remained the most-watched network on Friday, but its drama trio — “MacGyver” (Viewers: #1, 4.13 million; A18-49: #3, 0.4/ 3 at 8 p.m.), “Magnum, P.I.” (Viewers: #1, 5.13 million; A18-49: #1t, 0.5/ 4 at 9 p.m.) and “Blue Bloods” (Viewers: #1 for the night, 5.99 million; A18-49: #1, 0.6/ 5 at 10 p.m.) — pales in comparison to what it once was.

Tied with “Blue Bloods” for first overall in adults 18-49 was ABC’s “Shark Tank”, which scored 3.62 million viewers (#2) in the Friday 8 p.m. ET hour. In the battle of the newsmagzines, both ABC’s “20/20” (Viewers: #2, 2.43 million; A18-49: #3, 0.4/ 3) and NBC’s “Dateline” (Viewers: #3, 2.42 million; A18-49: #4, 0.3/ 2) were clear losers in the 9-11 p.m. block.

Elsewhere, NBC’s “The Blacklist” (Viewers: #3, 3.18 million; A18-49: #4, 0.3/ 3 at 8 p.m.) is not worthy of being renewed. “WWE Friday Night Smackdown!” has never been the hit Fox was hoping for. See network averages above. And a Friday encore edition of action game show “Wipeout” (Viewers: #5, 610,000) led into “Penn & Teller: Fool Us” (Viewers: #5, 705,000) on The CW. Both averaged a mere 0.1 in the demo.