Though it wasn’t the “winner” of Thursday’s Nielsen Live+Same Day fast affiliate rankings, The CW’s latest series, a Jared Padalecki-fronted reboot of “Walker, Texas Ranger” entitled “Walker” performed outstandingly well compared to the network’s numbers these past couple of weeks. It attracted roughly 2.4 million viewers to the small screen and earned a rating of 0.4 in the key, adults ages 18-49 demographic.
Instead, CBS’ sitcom spinoff “Young Sheldon,” which, like its predecessor “The Big Bang Theory,” is created by Chuck Lorre and Steven Molaro, took the cake on Thursday night for the network: the winter return of the series garnered a 0.8 rating in the key demo and 7.5 million viewers.
Elsewhere on television at 8 p.m., ABC’s “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune,” which is like the classic Pat Sajak and Vanna White-led game show but with— you guessed it— celebrities drew a 0.8 rating in the key demo and 6.1 million viewers. A new episode of Fox’s “Hell’s Kitchen” (0.7, 2.8) and NBC’s “Mr. Mayor” (0.5, 3.1) also premiered in the timeslot.
By 8:30 p.m., CBS was running a new episode of “B Positive” (0.5, 5.04), and NBC was airing a new episode of “Superstore” (0.4, 2).
The Big 4 Networks continued debuting new episodes throughout the rest of the primetime hours. ABC’s trivia show “The Chase” led the 9 p.m. window, drawing a 0.7 rating and 4.3 million viewers. Trailing close behind was CBS’ “Mom” (0.6, 4.9) and NBC’s long-running “Law & Order: SVU” (0.6, 3.6). Additionally, Fox dropped a new episode of Mayim Bialik sitcom “Call Me Kat” (0.5, 2.5), while The CW’s “Legacies” season three debuted with little noise (0.2, 0.7).
At 9:30 p.m., CBS ran a new episode of “The Unicorn” (0.4, 3.5) and Fox aired a new episode of “Last Man Standing” (0.4, 2.5).
Topping off the end of the night timeslot was ABC’s “The Hustler,” which lured in a 0.5 rating in the key demo and 2.7 million viewers at 10 p.m. Also on at that time was “Dateline NBC” (0.3, 3) and CBS’ “Star Trek: Discovery” (0.2, 1.75), which substantially increased by 25% in the key demo compared to last episode’s numbers.
Over on the Spanish language giants, Univision dropped new episodes of Mexican telenovelas “Vencer el desamor” at 8 p.m. (0.4, 1.6), and “Imperio de Mentiras” at 9 p.m. (0.3, 1.2). At 10 p.m., Univision ran a new episode of Brazilian telenovela “A Dona do Pedaço (Dulce Ambición),” which drew a 0.3 in the key demo and a little over a million viewers. Throughout the evening, Telemundo premiered new episodes of the game show “El Domo del Dinero” (0.2, 0.9) at 8 p.m., Turkish soap opera “Todo Por Mi Hija” (0.3, 1.3) at 9 p.m., and Telemundo Global Studios-produced telenovela “Falsa Identidad” (0.2, 0.7) at 10 p.m.
Overall on Thursday night, ABC came in number one in the key, adults ages 18-49 demographic, securing a rating of 0.7 and an average of 4.4 million viewers. Fox came close behind in second place in the key demo with a 0.6 rating, but its 2.5 million viewer mark was actually fourth in comparison to the rest of the networks’ performance. CBS and NBC tied for third in the key demo, drawing a 0.5 rating each, but CBS took the lead for viewers (4 million), while NBC got an average of 3 million viewers. The last three networks— The CW, Univision, Telemundo —all tied for the fourth slot in ratings, obtaining a 0.3 each. In terms of viewers, The CW reigned, attracting about 1.6 million viewers, while the two Spanish-language channels earned 1.3 million viewers (Univision) and 977,000 (Telemundo).
