Preliminary Ratings: Wednesday 09/21/2016

FOX takes night three of the new season, as the season premiere of EMPIRE tops the chart as the #1 program of the night. The third season drama scored a 4.1 rating in Adults 18-49, along with 10.8 million viewers. As good as that sounds, it is off by 5.4 million viewers and 2.6 points in the A18-49 demographic. However, the ratings held steady from this past May's season finale. At 8 PM, the series premiere of LETHAL WEAPON finished second in the hour, with a 2.2 rating in the A18-49 demo and 7.8 million viewers. Last year's ROSEWOOD series premiere drew slightly bigger numbers, as the lead in to EMPIRE.

ABC and CBS were neck-and-neck for second place, as both networks tied in the A18-49 demo, CBS took the younger, A18-34 demo, ABC took the older A25-54 demo and total viewership. The ABC comedies were down, year-to-year, including MODERN FAMILY which lost 1.3 million viewers and 19% in the demo. The series premiere of the sitcom, SPEECHLESS, held its lead in demos and grew the total audience by 500k. The 10 PM drama, DESIGNATED SURVIVOR, won its time slot, drawing 10 million viewers and a solid 2.3 rating in Adults 18-49. That is double what NASHVILLE pulled in, last year, for its season premiere.

CBS' SURVIVOR premiere and BIG BROTHER finale did solid numbers. The ratings are down, slightly, including two-tenths of a point in the A18-49 demographic.

After winning the first two nights of the season, NBC drops to 4th place on Wednesday. BLINDSPOT lead off the night with just six million viewers and a 1.3 demo rating, not much better than last year's MYSTERIES OF LAURA premiere. LAW & ORDER: SVU held its demographic numbers from last fall, but lost 600,000 total viewers. CHICAGO PD lost a tenth in each of the demo categories, from last year's premiere, but gained 250,000 viewers.

Preliminary L+SD Network Averages:

	Total viewers	A18-34	A18-49	A25-54
ABC	8.10 million	1.3	2.2	2.8
CBS	7.80 million	1.5	2.2	2.7
CW	1.20 million	0.2	0.3	0.4
FOX	9.30 million	2.5	3.2	3.6
NBC	6.90 million	1.0	1.6	2.0

Time	Net	Program	P2*	A18-34	A18-49	A25-54
8:00	ABC	The Goldbergs (SP)	6.80	1.1	2.0	2.5
8:30	ABC	Speechless (SP)	7.30	1.1	2.0	2.6
9:00	ABC	Modern Family (SP)	8.20	1.6	2.6	3.3
9:30	ABC	Black-ish (SP)	6.40	1.2	2.0	2.5
10:00	ABC	Designated Survivor (SP)	10.00	1.3	2.3	3.0
8:00	CBS	Survivor (SP)	9.30	1.4	2.3	3.0
9:30	CBS	Big Brother (SF)	6.20	1.5	2.0	2.3
8:00	CW	Penn & Teller: Fool Us [R]	1.20	0.2	0.3	0.4
9:00	CW	Whose Line is it Anyway?	1.10	0.2	0.3	0.4
9:30	CW	Whose Line [R]	1.20	0.3	0.4	0.5
8:00	FOX	Lethal Weapon (SP)	7.80	1.4	2.2	2.7
9:00	FOX	Empire (SP)	10.80	3.5	4.1	4.5
8:00	NBC	Blindspot	6.00	0.8	1.3	1.7
9:00	NBC	Law & Order: SVU (SP)	7.70	1.2	1.8	2.3
10:00	NBC	Chicago PD (SP)	6.90	1.0	1.6	2.0

* - viewers in millions