Another week, another victory for open dialogue. Who knew that average Americans would like to watch a TV show about — well, average Americans?
Ratings for the second episode of the reboot of ABC’s ‘Roseanne’ saw a drop from its premiere week, but that’s to be expected since a lot of people wanted to see what the return of the Roseanne Barr-led comedy would look like.
Apparently, a lot of people enjoyed the first episode so much, they came back for more.
According to the Hollywood Reporter:
ABC's half-hour episode of the revived sitcom averaged a 3.9 rating among adults 18-49 and 15.2 million viewers. Compared with the live showing of the one-hour premiere a week ago, the audience dropped by 17 percent. Among adults 18-49, the second week marks a steeper 24 percent drop[…]
Three days of time-shifting have already seen the Mar. 27 episode soar to 25 million viewers and a 7.3 rating in the key demo. The only scripted broadcast series with those kinds of numbers in recent memory is the post-Super Bowl episode of This Is Us.
Time shifting — in TV language — is the adding of people to the ratings of a show who recorded the program and watched the show after the broadcast's initial airing.
The premiere episode of ‘Roseanne’ scored a big ratings win with an 18.2 live rating. It was the biggest rating for a major network sitcom in over three years.
I understand ‘Roseanne’ isn’t for everyone, both in its initial run and its current run, and that’s okay. Everybody doesn’t need to like everything. If they did, there would be no need for ratings in the first place.
But people who slam the show for its politics don’t understand that the show never claimed it was conservative or liberal. It shouldn’t be an issue for a show to put forth liberal politics, as long as the other side is represented as well. Plus, it's not like the show is constantly political, much like real life.
I’m not saying people should adjust their lives because of the show. Live your life without influence, but ’Roseanne’ puts a show out there with an open dialogue. If only people could do that in real life without biting each other’s heads off all the time, we might not be wound up so tight.
For a clip from this week's episode, watch below: