Celebrity Wheel leads strong night of games for ABC

 

Photo courtesy of ABC.

ABC debuted it's "Winter Fun and Games" last night and it turned out to be a big ratings success as ABC swept the night.

Starting first was Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, the first time the show has ever dived into the primetime landscape. The show hit a 1.1 in the demo rating with 7.8 million viewers. Not only does is that the most watched game show premiere in quite so time, it's one of the most watched television shows of the entire 2020-21 broadcast season (not counting sports, live events, and specials). Then, the highly anticipated reboot of The Chase, featuring the Jeopardy! GOATS followed with an 0.9 and 6.2 million viewers. Ken Jennings was the chaser for the first episode and it did not disappoint. Lastly was the premiere of The Hustler, which drew an 0.7 and 3.8 million viewers. The Hustler had a preview on Monday after yesterday's episode was up a few ticks from Monday's preview. 

Surely, ABC has to be thrilled with these ratings, as nothing else came close on any other networks. A few other shows tied The Hustler in the demo rating. CBS was in reruns with it's comedies, and they likely pose the biggest competition for the ABC shows in the week's ahead. Either way, ABC will take the win and it will be interesting to see if audiences keep coming back each week. Wheel has quite the following, so I don't expect their ratings to move much, but the jury is still out on The Chase and The Hustler. If ratings continue at this pace, no doubt ABC will want more of all three of their brand new games.

Full reviews of all three shows will be dropped on the blog throughout the weekend.