NBC’s ‘Night Court’ reboot scores best TV ratings for a comedy premiere since 2018

NBC’s reboot of “Night Court” drew the largest audience for a comedy premiere since 2018 while the debut of Fox’s crime anthology “Accused” was the most-watched premiere since CBS’ “The Equalizer” on Super Bowl Sunday in 2021.

“Night Court” averaged 7.544 million viewers, the most for a comedy premiere since ABC’s “The Conners” averaged 10.567 million viewers on Oct. 16, 2018, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen on Tuesday. It was eighth among prime-time programs airing between Jan. 16 and Sunday, behind three NFL playoff games, two pregame shows, one postgame show and “Accused.” A second episode that followed averaged 6.942 million viewers, 11th for the week, more than any comedy on any other network.

“Accused” averaged 8.705 million viewers, the most for a premiere since “The Equalizer” averaged 20.404 million viewers following the Super Bowl LV postgame show on Feb. 7, 2021. “Accused” had the most-watched premiere not following a Super Bowl since “9-1-1: Lone Star” averaged 11.405 million viewers on Jan. 19, 2020, following Fox’s coverage of the NFC championship game.

“Accused” followed Fox’s coverage of Sunday’s NFL divisional round playoff game between the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys, which averaged 45.654 million viewers, the most for any program in prime-time since Super Bowl Sunday and the most for a divisional round playoff game since 2017.

Two prime-time NFL playoff games gave Fox the largest weekly viewership of any network during the 18-week-old 2022-23 television season, averaging 14.52 million viewers , topping the previous high of 9.57 million for 22 hours by NBC a week earlier when it also aired two playoff games.

ABC was second, averaging 4.61 million, followed by CBS, which averaged 3.83 million and NBC, which averaged 3.4 million.

ABC’s top non-NFL program was “The Rookie,” 20th for the week and 14th among non-NFL programs, averaging 4.777 million viewers.

CBS’ top-rated program was an edition of “60 Minutes” with three previously aired reports that were updated for the broadcast and averaged 6.319 million viewers, 12th for the week.

The CW averaged 400,000 viewers. Its biggest draw was the crime drama “Walker,” which averaged 763,000 viewers, 139th among broadcast programs. Its overall ranking was not available.

The top 20 prime-time programs consisted of two NFL games; three NFL pregame shows; one NFL postgame show; “Accused”; two episodes of “Night Court”; the three elements of NBC’s “Chicago” franchise; “60 Minutes”; six CBS scripted programs; and “The Rookie.”

The top-ranked cable program was the Dallas Cowboys-Tampa Bay Buccaneers wild-card round game on ESPN, which averaged 11.657 million viewers.

ESPN won the cable network race for the sixth consecutive week and 11th time in 13 weeks, averaging 2.37 million viewers. Fox News Channel was second, averaging 1.955 million viewers and MSNBC third, averaging 915,000.

The cable top 20 consisted of ESPN’s coverage of the Dallas-Tampa Bay game and its 13-minute pregame show; 14 Fox News Channel weeknight political talk shows (five broadcasts each of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and “Hannity” and four of “The Ingraham Angle”); History’s long-running chronicle of a search for treasure on a Canadian island, “The Curse of Oak Island”; TNT’s coverage of the Boston Celtics-Golden State Warriors NBA game; the Hallmark Channel movie “The Wedding Veil Journey”; and the TLC dating series, “90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After?”

The second season of “Ginny & Georgia” was Netflix’s most-streamed television program for the third time in the three weeks it has been available, with viewers spending 87.4 million hours watching its 10 episodes, according to figures released by the streaming service Tuesday.

Viewership was down 46.3% from the 162.72 million hours watched the previous week, the season’s first full week of release. The season was watched for 180.47 million hours from Jan. 5-8, the first four days it was available. The first season was fourth for the week with 43.29 million hours watched.

“That ‘90s Show” was fifth with 41.08 million hours watched of its 10 episodes the first four days they were available.

Netflix’s most-watched film was “Dog Gone,” with viewers spending 20.91 million watching the drama about the search by a young man (Johnny Berchtold) and his father (Rob Lowe) for the son’s beloved dog after they become separated on the Appalachian Trail.

Viewership was up 10.8% from the 18.88 million hours the previous week when it was fourth and available for three days.