ABC’s third-season premiere of Station 19 in its new 8 PM slot in a two-hour crossover with its flagship Grey’s Anatomy gave thee network the two most watched and top-rated shows in primetime Thursday.
With Grey’s showrunner Krista Vernoff now in charge of both shows and three more crossovers in the works this season under Vernoff’s unified command, Station 19 (1.2 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic, 6.98 million viewers), now at 8 PM, returned as the night’s most-watched program, gaining four-tenths in the demo from its Season 2 finale in May.
It was followed by Grey’s (1.4, 6.65M), settling nicely into its new slot. Its demo number was even with Grey’s fall finale back on November 21.
In an interview with Deadline in November, Vernoff said the two shows will interconnect “every few episodes.” “We don’t want to do it every week, we don’t want to create a mold, we don’t want to fall into any kind of pattern, we don’t want people to ever know what to expect,” she said.
Also on Thursday, Fox premiered its Jason Biggs-Maggie Lawson multi-camera family comedy Outmatched (0.7, 3.23M), which rode the strong lead-in of Last Man Standing (0.8, 4.40M), the latter up a tenth compared with last week.
NBC’s comedy lineup — Superstore (0.7, 2.73M), the penultimate episode of The Good Place (0.6, 2.11M) and Will & Grace (0.5, 2.30M) — all saw one-tenth bumps, leading into the season finale of Perfect Harmony (0.3, 1.42M), which was even in the demo and saw a slight viewer uptick. With its 13-episode first season now finished, the 20th Century Fox TV-produced series starring Bradley Whitford awaits a renewal decision which likely won’t come til closer to the May upfronts.
The CW’s night included Supernatural (0.2, 1.02M), down a tenth as it continues its final-season run, and Legacies (0.2, 720,000), which was even with last week.
CBS’ comedy lineup was in repeats, with the network’s night capped by The Gayle King Grammy Special (0.3, 2.63M) ahead of Sunday’s Grammy Awards telecast.
