RATINGS RECAP: 9/24/15

ABC
8:00 Grey's Anatomy
Viewers: 9.6 million, 18-49 demo: 2.8
9:00 Scandal
Viewers: 10.3 million, 18-49 demo: 3.3
10:00 How to Get Away with Murder
Viewers: 8.4 million, 18-49 demo: 2.6

CBS
8:00 NFL Thursday Night Kickoff
Viewers: 7.6 million, 18-49 demo: 2.2
8:30 Thursday Night Football
Viewers: 16.9 million, 18-49 demo: 6.0

NBC
8:00 Heroes: Reborn
Viewers: 6.1 million, 18-49 demo: 2.0
10:00 The Player
Viewers: 4.7 million, 18-49 demo: 1.2

FOX
8:00 Scream Queens (Repeat)
Viewers: 2.0 million, 18-49 demo: 0.7

On Thursday night, viewers came flocking back to TGIT as they the trio delivered a very strong opening to the season. At 8pm, Grey's Anatomy continued to go strong as it has now entered its 12th season and shows no sign of a slump after the Patrick Dempsey departure. The best news for ABC came from Scandal as the show came roaring back from its spring slump. It was up a full demo point from its season finale for its best performance since February 19. The trend wasn't looking great for this show in the spring but this has to be a huge sigh of relief as viewers were definitely excited for Scandal to return. At 10pm, How to Get Away with Murder did quite well but it was a little bit more concerning than the other two because it returned to a series low despite the strong showing from Scandal. It looks like viewers aren't as attached to this show as Grey's and Scandal and that could prove to be a problem over time. I know they wouldn't have done well but ABC should have considered rerunning the entire season over the summer. They do have Viola Davis' Emmy win to use as promotion but this may need some extra attention after an underwhelming premiere.

NBC kicked off its new Thursday lineup with the two hour premiere of Heroes: Reborn. It delivered OK numbers and held up pretty well across the two hours, but it wasn't anything too special and the bad news is this is most likely the ceiling for this show as fans of Heroes checked it out and some will undoubtedly reject it while others who never watched the original (like myself) have no interest. As expected, the series premiere of The Player was pretty much ignored. It was slightly above Allegiance's February debut in this slot but below Parenthood from a year ago in this slot (with a far lower lead-in). Right now it looks like this could battle Minority Report for first cancellation but let's see how the rest of the newbies do. On CBS, a Giants-Redskins game was pretty close to dead even with the same matchup a year ago. FOX aired a repeat of the Scream Queens premiere two days after originally airing it. I guess you could make the argument that the premiere has now gotten a 2.4 demo over two nights. Bones and Sleepy Hollow return next week.

WINNER OF THE NIGHT: Scandal (ABC)
LOSER OF THE NIGHT: The Player (NBC)