CBS Ends Week Strong With 'MacGyver' As Rest Of Networks See Soft Starts

Starting with the negative news, ABC's "Notorious" and Fox's "Pitch" both under-whelmed. "Notorious" especially started weakly considering it had "Grey's Anatomy" as a lead-in and "How To Get Away With Murder" as its lead-out.

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"Notorious" bowed to just 5.4 million viewers and a 1.1 demo in the 18–49 category which is about half of what "Grey's Anatomy" earned. Shows that debut below a 1.0 are usually early candidates for cancellation, which also doesn't bode well for Fox's "Pitch."

The baseball drama also did a 1.1 demo but had only 4.2 million viewers. "Pitch's" low numbers are surprisingly low given it had the backing of Major League Baseball and had a number of on-air sports personality cameos.

Meanwhile Friday brought another low for Fox as its critically savaged "The Exorcist" was watched by just 2.9 million viewers and a pulled a 1.0 in the demo. Analysts were not entirely surprised though, given its Friday placement on the schedule.

However, the week ended on a high note as CBS found success with its "MacGyver" reboot which was expertly paired with the long-running "Hawaii Five-0" revamp. The new "MacGyver" was watched by 10.9 million viewers and scored a 1.7 in the demo. The show's success extended to "H50," which returned up.

Full ratings data available on Benzinga Pro.