Steep Competition Could Be To Blame For The River's Just-OK Premiere Ratings

The premiere of ABC’s The River was up against a fair amount of competition last night. In that respect, the ratings for the series’ debut were decent, but the thriller-drama didn’t measure up to some of the other premieres this year in terms of viewers.

TV Line posted the news, stating that The River, which premiered on ABC at 9:00 p.m. Tuesday night, earned itself 8.2 million total viewers (2.5 rating) for its first hour and slipped to 6.8 million viewers for the second hour. The site compares this to some of ABC’s other premiere showings this season. The list is topped by Once Upon a Time, which took in 12.8 million viewers (3.9 rating) for it’s debut. OUaT is followed by Pan Am with 10.8 million, and Revenge with 10 million.

The fact that ABC’s inevitably failed Charlie’s Angels reboot beat The River in premiere viewers (it earned 8.7 million) doesn’t bode well for the series, however it’s likely that a lot of people tuned in for CA’s premiere due to being familiar with the premise from the original series and the movies.

In the meantime, The River’s debut went up against new episodes of The Biggest Loser (NBC), Ringer (The CW), New Girl/Raising Hope (6.9 million viewers for NG, Fox), and NCIS: Los Angeles (16.1 million viewers, CBS). Even those of us who rely on our DVR’s to record more than one thing at a time might have been stuck with a choice to miss something we already watch regularly to take a chance on a new series. A less competitive time-slot (10:00 p.m.?) might help in this case.

I liked The River pilot and I think the series has a lot of potential, but I'm not sure I'm ready to choose it over the three other shows I already watch, which air during the Tuesday night 9:00 p.m. hour.