ABC’s revival of Roseanne — starring Roseanne Barr, John Goodman and the original cast — stunned in its Tuesday-night debut, opening as the season’s top premiere and as Tuesday’s highest-rated entertainment broadcast in six years.

Roseanne scored a 5.1 rating/21 share among primetime’s key demographic of adults 18-49 and averaged 18.2 million viewers in its special one-hour, two-episode debut at 8 p.m. on Tuesday. That audience is larger than the 16.6 million viewers who tuned in to see the series finale on May 20, 1997. The only scripted show to outperform it this season is NBC’s post- Super Bowl episode of This Is Us, which drew a 9.3 rating in the key demographic and nearly 27 million viewers.

Those numbers also put it on par with two TV mega-hits: HBO’s Game of Thrones, which scored a 5.7 in the key adult demo for its season-seven finale last summer and the season eight premiere of AMC’s The Walking Dead last October, which averaged a 5.0 in the demo, according to Vulture.

Roseanne also lifted the rest of ABC’s Tuesday night line-up. Black-ish hit a season high at 9 p.m. among adults 18-49 at a 2.6/10 and second largest-ever audience with 8.7 million viewers. The series debut of Splitting Up Together at 9:30 p.m. scored multi-year time slot highs with a 2.2/8 among adults 18-49 and 7.2 million viewers. Shonda Rhimes’ For the People also hit series highs at 10 p.m. with 3.6 million viewers and a 0.9 among adults 18-49.

ABC will run an encore of the Roseanne premiere on Sunday, April 1, at 7 p.m.

That performance probably ensures that the reboot craze has only just begun, and many are in the pipeline for the upcoming TV season. Another ‘90s sitcom revival that premiered earlier this year, NBC’s Will & Grace, opened to a 3.0 among adults 18-49 and 10.2 million viewers. That show is now renewed through a third season.

READ MORE: The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Vulture

Tags: abc roseanne tv ratings


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