Ratings: ‘Once Upon A Time’, ‘Revenge’ Up, NBC wins with football

Credit: ABC

It was a pretty big night for TV, as the midseason finales of Once Upon A Time and Revenge saw significant boosts from their previous averages, while NBC coasted to a big win for the night with help from a high-scoring football overrun.

Among adults 18-49, NBC won the night with a 5.3 key demo rating, besting CBS’ 3.2. ABC’s 2.1 rating and the 1.7 key demo rating for FOX trailed behind.

In total, NBC averaged approximately 15.095 million viewers, translating to a 9.2 rating/14 share for Sunday night. CBS held tight at second with an 8.4/13 and 13.305 million viewers. ABC’s 4.3/6 with 7 million viewers was good enough for third place, sitting comfortably ahead of the 3.91 million viewers and the 2.2 rating/3 share for FOX.

ABC’s winter finale bump bodes well for the network’s Sunday night lineup, which has struggled in recent weeks, with one series in the bloc getting the axe, 666 Park Avenue. Ratings have yet to pour in for cable, but it will be interesting to see what kind of numbers AMC pulls for its midseason finale of The Walking Dead, particularly given that complete, scene-by-scene spoilers for the episode leaked early last week. It’s hard to tell what kind of effect spoilers have on viewership, and really, you aren’t really getting the whole Walking Dead experience reading spoilers, but I’d have to imagine that some of the urgency in seeing the episode is dulled by being spoiled ahead of time. Although maybe that’s just a naive hypothesis on my part. Ratings usually confound me more often than not (case in point: The continued success of Honey Boo Boo).

Full breakdown: HitFix