The Wiz has found its true home with NBC this week, raking in ratings highs and social records while it’s at it.

NBC’s live musical tradition continued this week with its own version of The Wiz, following Peter Pan and Sound of Music’s ratings success. But staying on par with the first two events was not an option for The Wiz, which aired to 11.5 million viewers on Thursday night.

The Wiz tripled NBC’s season average for 18-49. The only broadcast series to best its ratings this season is NBC’s The Voice, which came in at 12.4 million viewers for its season premiere.

The event starred newcomer Shanice Williams as Dorothy, along with Ne-Yo, Elijah Kelley, David Alan Grier, Common, Mary J. Blige, Amber Riley, Uzo Aduba and Stephanie Mills, who was the original Dorothy in the stage production.

The live musical event also set a Nielsen Twitter record as most social live special program in the history of its ratings service - The Wiz generated more social engagement than both Peter Pan and Sound of Music combined. According to social media analysts Canvs, The Wiz drew four times as many reactions per minute than Peter Pan and three times as many as Sound of Music. Shareablee added that The Wiz had more social excitement than the previous musicals leading up to the actual premiere as well.

Ratings for The Wiz were 42 percent higher than Peter Pan in 2014, but didn’t hit the live musical high of Sound of Music, which earned 18 million viewers in 2013. Reviews were another story, however, with critics and social media agreeing that The Wiz is NBC’s best musical yet.

Check out just a few of the Twitter reactions from the show Thursday night:

Read more at Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.

Brief Take: Fox has plenty of lessons to take from The Wiz (and its predecessors) for its Grease Live event next month, as the competition for TV musicals grows year to year.

[Image courtesy of NBC]

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