Tuesday TV Ratings: ‘Rudolph’ Topples ‘Victoria Secret Fashion Show,’ ‘This Is Us’ Climbs

Anyone who watched the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show (which wasn’t many) could tell you that Ming Xi’s tumble on the runway was representative of the fashion show’s falling ratings.

As seen last night on CBS, the Angel took a big tumble onstage at the Shanghai show, which ultimately ended up mirroring the TV production’s numbers for the night with a new all-time low in the key demo and total viewers.

Tuesday night’s VSFS (1.5/6) fell 29 percent from the previous low of last year among adults 18-49. With a scant 4.98 million sets of eyeballs, last night’s Fashion Show was down 25 percent from the Dec. 5, 2016 show, which was on a Monday and up against the NFL on ESPN.

To put all that into perspective, the fashion show was topped in the ratings by the annual broadcast of the Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (1.8/7) holiday special that CBS ran at 8 p.m.

But just because Rudolph beat out the Angels doesn’t mean he did spectacularly well. The holiday classic was also down from last year, with a 22 percent dimming from its Dec. 1, 2016 airing. An NCIS (1.0/4) repeat bridged the two specials on CBS on Tuesday in the 9 p.m. slot.

Elsewhere, NBC struck its stride with This Is Us with its unsurprisingly emotionally-charged winter finale, up 8 percent in the demo and 16 percent in viewers to hit a 5-week high with 10.84 million watching. Another big win for the network is that this year’s This Is Us winter finale was basically even in both categories with the Season 1 winter finale from Dec. 6, 2016.

The Voice (1.8/7) was up a tenth before This Is Us on NBC, and 10 p.m.’s Chicago Med was even with its season premiere of last week.

On Fox, Lethal Weapon (1.0/4) was even with its Nov. 21 show in its demo, but had its most-watched episode of the season with 4.95 million viewers. The Mick (0.8/3) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (0.7/3) were both up a tenth from last week.

ABC had all re-runs Tuesday night.