Tracy Kimmell (RTN Queen Bees), Tracy Kimmell Live (RTN-TV) (Channel 8)
ICE TAKES A REST EVERYBODY ELSE GOES UP!
After a really big day for ICE they decide to take a little rest today and gear up for another big day tomorrow their first Kelly Green day of the season where their popular Love in the Afternoon brand of daytime soaps return for the first time in 5 years. It made for a much tighter race in the ratings where ROD actually edged out ICE for first place but even on an off day ICE still looked real strong while RTN had an amazing bounce back performance from the day before getting over 20 million viewers on average for 3rd place getting more than 10 million viewers over their rival SBC to keep them in last place for the second day in a row.
ROD took home first place and today was a good day for them to test the waters and see exactly where their daytime block is at in the ratings this season. This schedule led them to first place so it looks like ROD will only need minimal changes going forward.
ROD's biggest rating of the day came from the popular hit country music variety talker Hunter & Kacey which still looks strong coming off of a great rookie season campaign as H&K notched in one of their highest ratings of all-time in 38.65 million viewers to lead that 7pm hour over RTN's premiere of Hotel. This might've been the one program today for ROD that helped clinch this first place victory as Lucy Hale and #1 pick Gigi Hadid were guests today as they previewed tonight's Miss Roderick Pageant season premiere. Caitlin Stasey got a big boost behind it with fair retention of 76% behind H&K and due to the lead-in beat that first hour of Tahj & Arielle on ICE.
Caitlin Stasey did just enough to give As the World Turns and Guiding Light higher than normal ratings on Thursday morning. All of the ROD soaps saw bigger numbers hanging around 25 million viewers including Sunset Beach at 6pm which nabbed in 28 million viewers helping new game show Jackpot behind it.
Chachi Gonzales had a quiet premiere the day before but went way up today getting over 27 million viewers there's potential with Chachi and ROD just has to decide what's the best slot for it. Chachi's other show Super Crews had almost 20 million viewers having to grow out of lower rated O.C. rerun lead-ins.
Overall a great day for Lucy Hale so far and it can get even better in primetime with the pageants.
ICE like we said took the day off but their talkers still remained strong although predictably down from their premieres yesterday as Tahj & Arielle nabbed 26 million viewers while Pyper America is looking like a huge problem for the other networks as she's cutting into their demographics as Pyper reached 31 million viewers.
Surprisingly for ICE their replay of Team ICE from the day before did pretty well where the soaps are usually going to be at that gave the season premieres of ICE Afterschool Special and ICE's Wide World of Sports a really good lead-in as both of them reached around 27 million viewers on average between them two.
This was a solid day for Paige Van Buren coming neck-and-neck with ROD for 1st place and holding off a louder than usual performance from RTN.
RTN STRONG DEBUTS LEADS TO STRONG DAY FOR THEM
RTN was smart to wait a day to unleash their new regular daytime lineup and let their new stars debut today as it gave them a chance to grab some of those ICE viewers who was interested in seeing their old favorites in their new Chicago surroundings.
Girls TV led off with their #1 draft pick and new face of the franchise Janet Moore who was a special guest on the show and for RTN they don't have any competition outside of Drama's Place in this hour so this is a key slot for them and once again they notched around 25 million viewers in this slot for the second day in a row leading into the highly anticipated premiere of their new morning soap Hotel which stars Tracy Kimmell and Mia Lasanti as the new favorite character Alex. Hotel grew out of Girls TV to 28 million viewers against a higher than usual Hunter & Kacey over on ROD and blew the doors off of Fashion House on SBC.
Next up was College and The Fugitives and College starred Janet Moore and with increased competition here both shows dropped behind their lead-ins so the slots are very difficult.
Allison Shields was next at 10am as she already made her debut yesterday but here in her first scripted fare on the network she got the ratings back up near 20 million viewers for the premiere of Emma and Rachael in a less difficult timeslot but it's a heavy lineup for soaps so it's gonna be interesting if people decide to stick with this one.
The most impressive scripted premiere on Thursday for RTN might've been their premiere of Sheriff with draft picks Brandon Lewis, Jessica Hart, Diana Moldovan, and Hana Jirickova along with high-profile new RTN Queen Bee Santana Shields which grabbed 24.54 million viewers and major growth out of Emma and Rachael this soap was unopposed by other soaps but tomorrow All My Children premieres for ICE so for Sheriff this one might have major potential and RTN might need to move it next week if the ratings go down hard tomorrow. Right now it seemed to be the pick of the day after Hotel for RTN soap fans.
Workout followed and for the second day in a row against Pyper America it couldn't draw well bleeding out of Sheriff by more than 50% that's not good for Workout at all. The great news is that Allison Shields who still has a little bit of drawing power not as much as she had on ICE it seems but she got Uncut's ratings back up to 12 million viewers more than what Workout had so a great premiere for Uncut.
Tracy Kimmell who never really hosted a daytime talk show got her own on RTN but she's no stranger to hosting as she's done it on Tracy's 3 Girls and Saturday Night Diamond Girls in the past in primetime. So far so good as she grabbed the network's highest ratings of the day and beat Pyper America getting over 34 million viewers for her season premiere. That was enough to dominate SBC in the same slot but a thing to keep an eye on here was that both ICE and ROD took that timeslot against Tracy off on Thursday and SBC was weak there so competition was not there so it will be interesting to see if these ratings are a fluke or not.
The animation block really couldn't get anything going for RTN at all that followed Tracy Kimmell as we saw a huge drop-off and missed opportunity for RTN to take advantage of a rare day where ICE and ROD weren't competitive in these slots. Animated shows continue to struggle on NITRO Television but that can change on Saturday morning as ICE and ROD are unleashing some that they think will finally click for NITRO but we'll see about that.
RTN rose back up going into the late afternoon hours in daytime as they had a new cast for Party of Five with Gia Jolie leading the troops with Tracy's little cousin Shannon Pouliot making her RTN debut here along with Alanna Arlington, Robyn Morrow, and Lucky Trunfio in the cast as Party of Five grabs 16 million viewers which wasn't as high as some of the dramas from earlier in the day. There is pressure on Gia Jolie to do better as her ex-bestie Bridget Satterlee has already gotten off to a dominating start over on ICE. Gia honestly needed to do much better here and Runaways with the Petkovic got 15 million viewers and held most of the lead-in.
Very strong day for RTN but things go back to normal tomorrow so we'll see where these shows settle in at but so far so good for a few of them.
SBC finishes in dead last again and it's not looking good at all to start the season for SBC as they continue to struggle in daytime although the morning soaps starting with Drama's Place are doing just fine. Things start to get off the rails once we get to Couples Cooking which just isn't a good fit with the soaps in the mornings. Soaps can probably be a little stronger themselves but RTN and ROD have some difficult ones to go against.
SBC just can't get their variety or talk shows right as Zendaya is getting killed by Pyper America and Chachi Gonzales right now in that noon slot. This Afternoon Live looks like a dead show walking as those firings of Joyce DeWitt and the King sisters was bad PR for both shows. The good news is Nick Jonas is showing some sign of life as he had Tonya Krosney on as a guest as she brought her fanbase over so not sure Nick Jonas keeps these ratings tomorrow.
Where SBC finished strongly at was right at the end there showing a preview of Team SBC which premieres tomorrow as their basketball practice with Chase Carter and Meredith Mickelson grabbed the highest ratings of the day as fans wanted to see Chase Carter for the first time play some b-ball in NITRO. The basketball practice grabbed 22 million viewers to lead the last timeslot of daytime. It should be interesting to see how Team SBC premieres tomorrow as SBC doesn't have the setup like ICE has being apart of an actual high school league where the games count but it should be interesting to see how they do either way.
Tomorrow is the first Kelly Green Friday of the season for ICE with their soaps premiering that is going to affect tomorrow's ratings a whole lot.
