Talent Showdown: How Did ‘The Masked Singer’, ‘The World’s Best’, and ‘America’s Got Talent: The Champions’ Fare in the Ratings This Week?
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Just a few weeks ago, FOX’s The Masked Singer was the only talent competition airing on American TV, but now we’re in the home stretch of NBC’s America’s Got Talent: The Champions and this week CBS’s The World’s Best joined the fray. But which show came out on top in the ratings?
Last night, The World’s Best began airing in its current timeslot of Wednesdays at 8/7 c after its big post-Super Bowl premiere on Sunday. To the surprise of absolutely no one, it went down in both ratings and viewership like any other post-Super Bowl program. However, the size of it’s drop is a little concerning. The show went from having a 7.0 rating and 22.2 million viewers on Sunday to a 1.0 and 5.56 million viewers on Wednesday. It came second in viewership and third in the demo, and was the lowest unscripted program in its timeslot that evening.
The Masked Singer was up against World’s Best during the latter’s second hour, but managed to fare quite a bit better. It got a 2.2 rating and 7.06 million viewers, which is pretty much par for the course for the show. Masked Singer was the only primetime program to surpass a rating of 2.0 while nothing else – scripted or not – even came close (the second-highest was a 1.4 for NBC drama Chicago Med in the previous hour). The show continues to be a huge hit for FOX and has already been renewed for a second season.
While it’s tough for any other talent show to beat out The Masked Singer when it comes to ratings, the crown for overall viewership definitively belongs to America’s Got Talent: The Champions. The show had 9.79 million viewers on Monday, which was well over 2 million more than this week’s The Masked Singer. The Champions needle has barely moved since the premiere; this week was the least-watched episode of the AGT spin-off yet but it was only a couple of tenths below the show’s most-watched episode. Champions got a rating of 1.6 this week, which put in in second place behind the Bachelor‘s 1.8 for ABC in Monday primetime ratings but first in overall viewership for the night.
What Does This All Mean?
It’s still early, but the battle between The World’s Best (which was created as a challenger to America’s Got Talent) and America’s Got Talent: The Champions is looking very likely to be won by the latter program. AGT is one of the biggest shows in the country while The World’s Best promotional material made it look like little more than a cheap imitation.
And despite the Super Bowl Sunday premiere, The World’s Best started at an awkward time in the TV season. Most shows premiere in September, January, March, or late May/early June and viewers have already tended to commit to their TV-viewing schedule by the time the other months of the year have rolled around. The Masked Singer and AGT: The Champions started on the first Wednesday and Monday of January, respectively. World’s Best February start time (yes, including the Super Bowl lead-out spot) probably hurt the show more than it helped because unless your show is a major hit like Survivor (which premieres later this month) people just aren’t going to be seeking it out this time of year.
