On a night that saw a lot of action on cable with premieres (Welcome back Game Of Thrones and Veep) and season finales (Shameless and House Of Lies), CBS and the 49th Academy of Country Music Awards (3.3/9) took a hit from last year’s more than a decade-long high. With performances from The Voice’s Blake Shelton and Shakira, plus Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum, an appearance by Garth Brooks and big wins for George Strait, Miranda Lambert, Jason Aldean and Kacey Musgraves, the 8 PM – 11 PM awards show fell 23% from its April 7, 2013 show. Having lost out on the promotion platform of the NCAA Tournament the night before (the basketball was on Turner not CBS), the ACM also saw a dip of 8% in terms of total viewership from 2013’s 15.38 million to 14.14 million last night. CBS started the night with a new 60 Minutes (1.3/4) that was down 54% from last week, which saw overruns from the college basketball tournament. Still, even with those big stumbles, overall the network won the night in terms of the key demo (2.8/8) and total viewers 13.10 million.
Things have not been reborn for ABC’s Resurrection (2.1/5). In its fourth week, the new drama was down 13% to hit yet another new low. The rest of ABC’s night was a mix with America’s Funniest Homes Videos (1.3/4) even with last week, Once Upon A Time (2.2/6) bopping up 5% from its March 30 show and Revenge (1.3/3) slipping 7% from last week to tie a series low.
Over on Fox, it was animationation as usual for the first part of the night. Bob’s Burgers (0.9/3) and American Dad (1.2/4) were down 10% and 14% respectively from last week. On a bit of the flip side, The Simpsons (1.9/5) was even with its March 30 show while Family Guy (2.3/6) had a rise of 10% to be the second highest rated show of the night. Hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (1.5/4) closed the night for Fox with the same result as last week.
NBC would have probably loved to have that result, instead it was hit with a series of new lows. In its third week, American Dream Builders (0.6/2) fell 25% from its March 30 show to hit a new low. Newbie dramas Believe (1.0/2) and Crisis (1.0/2) also hit new lows with both shows dipping 9% from last week. NBC started the night with Ann Curry Reports: Our Year of Extremes – Did Climate Change Just Hit Home? (0.6/2) which had 4.10 million viewers.
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