In terms of total consumption around the TV shows premiering between Sunday September 21 and Thursday September 25, social media favorite and ratings darling ‘Scandal’ had the most consumption, while the return of NBC’s ‘The Voice’ had just 50% as much consumption. ‘Gotham,’ the Batman prequel had 34% as much consumption, but was most consumed new show.
As far as comedies go, ‘Modern Family’ had 10% as much consumption as Scandal, and the new Anthony Anderson-led ‘Black-ish’ had 7% as much consumption. They were the only two comedies on the top 10 list. The two comedies, together with ‘Scandal,’ ‘How To Get Away With Murder,’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ made gave ABC – with 50% of all consumption during Premiere Week – a leg up over CBS, Fox, and NBC.
As ‘The New York Times’ Bill Carter wrote on Friday of ABC’s success: “Perhaps the biggest cheers are emanating from ABC, whose Thursday night of dramas — all under the aegis of its superstar producer Shonda Rhimes — posted impressive initial ratings, with the 9 p.m. hit, “Scandal,” scoring its highest numbers ever, and the new 10 p.m. drama, “How to Get Away with Murder,” standing out as the strongest new entry so far this season. (Ms. Rhimes’s third show is “Grey’s Anatomy.”)”
When narrowing down to just hashtags around the premiering shows, Shondra Rhimes or comic book-related shows top the list. The hashtag #Scandal, had 387,000 Tweets around it between September 21-25, #HowToGetAwayWithMurder had 150,000 Tweets, and #GreysAnatomy had 127,000.
On the comic book side, #Gotham had 136,000 Tweets while #AgentsOfShield had 93,200 Tweets. While there’s a strong correlation between which programs performed best on Twitter and in terms of overall consumption, the Shondra Rhimes ABC block, and comic book shows or programs that appeal to the same audience like ‘Sleepy Hollow’ and ‘The Blacklist’ tend to do even better on Twitter