Aside from a strong World Series game on FOX, Halloween night’s ratings were pretty frightening. Lower TV usage as people went out trick-or-treating seemed to be the norm as networks other than FOX were down about 6 percent from 8-10 p.m. Factor in the World Series and the networks will surely be happy when things go back to normal a bit beginning this Thursday.
Game 6 of the World Series earned a 15.1 household rating in metered markets, the best of this year’s series and the highest for a Game 6 since 2009 (there have been four since then). Ratings will probably adjust up a bit in the finals since the game ended before midnight ET.
This Is Us put up the best adults 18-49 rating after the World Series, but its 2.0 demo score and 8.32 million viewers was a series low. NCIS (1.2, 11.91 million viewers) had the biggest total audience outside of FOX, but its viewership was down 9 percent from last week’s early ratings.
ABC’s comedies, CBS’ Bull (1.0, 9.62 million viewers) and NCIS: New Orleans (0.9, 8.84 million viewers), NBC’s Law & Order True Crime (0.8, 3.60 million viewers) and The CW’s The Flash (0.7, 1.88 million viewers) and Legends of Tomorrow (0.4, 1.43 million viewers) were all down as well, with declines between 0.1 and 0.3 in adults 18-49. Kevin (Probably) Saves the World managed to match last week’s 0.6 demo rating and 2.68 million viewers.
Things should get back to normal next week so don’t be too alarmed by the low numbers as there were several factors keeping people from tuning into regular programming.