Sunday night (May 20) went heavy on the music for the broadcast networks, with NBC’s telecast of the Billboard Music Awards and the first part of ABC’s American Idol finale taking up the top two slots in the key demo.
The Billboard Music Awards, prior to lifts from time-zone adjustments for the coast-to-coast live telecast, led in the demo with a 2.1 rating among adults 18-49 and came in with just shy of 7 million viewers. The comparable stats from the 2017, its last year on ABC, were a 2.3 rating in the key demo and 7.7 million viewers. Billboard’s show will perk up when adjustments come in, but the kudos are still facing an all-time low.
NBC’s awards, toplined by host and Idol alum Kelly Clarkson, certainly dampened ABC’s American Idol finale. The competition was down to a 1.3 rating in the key demo and 7.4 million viewers. Among adults 18-49, that tied a low for the ABC show — clear evidence that younger viewers were torn on Sunday night. It wraps its revived run on Monday night (May 21). Elsewhere on the net, the series finale of Deception came in with a 0.6 rating in the key demo.
Fox aired its last Brooklyn Nine-Nine, averaging a 0.8 rating among adults 18-49, with two episodes of Bob’s Burgers (0.7 adults), The Simpsons (0.8) adults) and Family Guy (0.9 adults) also on the schedule. CBS put out new episodes of 60 Minutes (0.8 adults), NCIS: Los Angeles (0.8 adults) and Madam Secretary (0.6 adults).
*Both Billboard and Music Awards producer Dick Clark Productions are sister companies of The Hollywood Reporter.
This article originally appeared on THR.