Theresa Bush (ICE Starlets), Team ICE (ICE-TV) (Channel 7)
WELCOME BACK TO NITRO EVERYBODY!
With that being said they might got a new boss, new roster, and new style but they're still NITRO's Most Watched Network and we're talking about ICE who dominated the opening day of the season and it wasn't even close at all.
There was some concerns after a 5-year layoff if everyone would return to NITRO but that question has been dismissed it looks like enough hype went into the original return back in 2016 for people to remain patient for a couple of more years to see NITRO return with the most hyped up draft class in NITRO history.
It was a day full of NITRO debuts and it looks like on the ratings side ICE was just too much today to handle so we'll have to get a better read on the other studio's rookies drawing power in NITRO to start their careers.
ICE made an audible today in the afternoon to showcase the Team ICE baseball which was originally scheduled to air on TV-44 today and it looks like that decision helped them draw on average over 40 million viewers.
ICE's Daytime Talkers Real Strong in Debuts
ICE got their day started with the brand new Sarah & Jesse AM replacement Tahj & Arielle AM which proved to be just as strong as the prior getting 31 million viewers for its premiere episode so that show is off to a strong start.
The variety talk shows continued as Pyper America made her high anticipated debut to be the newest host for what used to be The Noon Show as Arielle Kebbel was the last host and now 5th round draft pick Pyper America takes over for her and she already looks like a huge draw so great trade by ICE who got her from RTN who originally drafted her back in 2016. It's High Noon kicked off its run with 53 million viewers which will be a new record for any daytime talker premiere in NITRO history.
Women's Sports Club which was originally supposed to had debuted on Sunday afternoon as ICE's official pregame show for the WFL became a pregame show for Team ICE and it had great numbers after Pyper America getting 88% retention behind It's High Noon leading into Team ICE so that was a pretty good timeslot.
The last daytime talker that premiered today was the second season of Amber Montana's popular afternoon talker called the Afternoon Showcase which had a supreme lead-in with Team ICE Baseball which drew in 66 million viewers allowing Amber Montana to get her all-time series high 59 million viewers after the game and Amber Montana did a great job of really holding that lead-in.
Team ICE's nightcap in daytime grabbed 81.56 million viewers which was the all-time weekday daytime ratings record surpassing the 73 million viewers that the WAG softball game got back on Tuesday November 19, 2013.
New ICE Phederation Daytime President Ashley Benson will unleash her new look soap block for the first time this Friday.
ROD came in second place on Lucy Hale's first day of action so ROD's daytime schedule still looks pretty strong going into this new season.
Hunter Hayes and Kacey Musgraves' morning variety talker still remains appointment television for NITRO viewers getting 30 million viewers and that helped the debut of Caitlin Stasey's new morning show which replaces Karlie Kloss' show get over 20 million viewers. The two morning soaps As the World Turns and Guiding Light faced some tough competition but still got near their averages from last year.
The Midday Show got themselves another host and this time they replaced Carrie Underwood with new draft pick Chachi Gonzales who is known for her time on The Carpenters Hour and co-producing NITRO Stars. Her debut was less hyped and less known as she failed to reach 20 million viewers against Pyper America so this is sort of a black eye on Lucy Hale here.
The other soaps in daytime for ROD in Ain't No Mountain High Enough, LA Passions, and Sunset Beach was real strong against stiff competition on ICE especially Team ICE for Sunset Beach. These soaps look pretty strong here and for ROD here they had Super Crews which moved from primetime to daytime this season and the audience was okay not too bad we'll have to see how it does against lighter competition tomorrow.
RTN came in 3rd place beating SBC as RTN had a real up and down day but the competition was too tall today so they'll need another few days to see how their daytime offerings can do but this also wasn't their regular schedule this was a special schedule to reign in the new NITRO season.
What was interesting for RTN is the start of their six-hour preview show actually reached 24 million viewers at 6am with the highest numbers on the network for the day and you can see with that increased ICE competition they started sliding down.
Sistine Stallone's workout program at noon got shellacked by the combined 70+ million viewers watching either Pyper America on ICE or Chachi Gonzales on ROD so Sistine really had no chance here even though it held of SBC's Zendaya's variety dance hour.
Elsa Hosk's special with Yancy Speckhart did well as the rest of the day RTN had to go against Team ICE but there was an interesting battle between SBC's debut of Nick Jonas' talker against the season premiere of last year's popular hit daytime show Girls TV for RTN where Girls TV held on for the victory and the WFL special did pretty well getting the highest numbers since the morning hours.
SBC had a pretty low day except for the early morning soaps Drama's Place and Fashion House. The rest of the day was a bit of a mess for them as the premiere of the hyped up This Afternoon Live was a failure in its debut drawing very little interest it was so bad that Nick Jonas actually beat it a couple of hours later.
SBC seems to have always had struggles in daytime especially outside of Drama's Place but they'll need to figure things out soon but they did go up against a big day for ICE so we'll see where they settle into tomorrow.
