Tuesday’s TV Ratings: ‘This Is Us’ Surges to Strong Finish

NBC’s This Is Us closed out its sophomore run proving once and for all that it’s a TV ratings topper.

The popular drama series, which closed out its second season Tuesday night with another emotional episode, jumped 23% from last week in the key 18-49 demo, grabbing a 2.7 rating. Meanwhile, its audience surged 17%, drawing in 10.9 million pairs of eyes, which likely had to be wiped with tissues as fans watched the emotional dreams of a future Jack. Overall, This Is Us ended its second season equaling its best numbers since Nov. 28.

Opening the night on NBC, The Voice, which toppled ABC‘s revival of American Idol in Monday night TV ratings, was up 10% in audience size to 10 million viewers and up a tenth in the demo rating, pulling a 2.2. Leading out of This Is Us, the debut of Rise was sampled by 5.7 million viewers and earned a 1.3 rating. The freshmen series will claim This Is Us‘ 9 o’clock timeslot next week.

On ABC, The Middle dropped to 4.8 million viewers and a 1.1 rating. Meanwhile, Fresh Off the Boat was steady with 3.1 million viewers and a 0.9 demo rating and black-ish (3 million/0.9) was down with its first episode of the night and fell even lower with its second episode (2.8 million/0.8). For The People (3.25 million/0.8) didn’t fare any better, giving the network its least watched and lowest rated premiere during its Tuesday night timeslot since Of Kings & Prophets.

Fox’s LA to Vegas (2.1 million/0.7) and The Mick (1.8 million/0.6) were both even if last week’s ratings.

On CBS, NCIS was steady with 13 million viewers and a 1.4 demo rating, while both Bull (10.6 million/1.2) and New Orleans (9.2 million/1.0) ticked up.

The CW’s The Flash (2.07 million/0.7) and Black Lightning (1.5 million/0.5) were both steady.