On Tuesday, Nov. 11, and Wednesday, Nov. 12, NBC’s two-night, three-show crossover storyline featuring its popular Dick Wolf-produced dramas shook up the primetime television landscape. The extravaganza kicked off Nov. 11 at 10 p.m. with a new episode of Chicago Fire, and continued into Wednesday primetime with the dynamic duo of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit at 9 p.m. (ET) and Chicago P.D. at 10 p.m. This unique television event garnered live-plus-same-day ratings and impressions significantly above each program’s current season averages to date. The higher-than-average numbers hauled in by the Wednesday shows proved especially important as they helped boost the Peacock Network to a rare victory in the 18-49 and 25-54 demos. Here’s how each program performed, broken down by household rating, persons 18-49, 25-54 and persons 2-plus.
As mentioned, the Tuesday, Nov. 11 episode of Chicago Fire titled “Nobody Touches Anything” kicked things off. Based on the numbers, it appears that this crossover strategy worked. The Tuesday 10 p.m. episode of Fire grabbed impressive numbers, earning a 2.2 rating in persons 18-49, 6.7 million households and almost 9.1 million total viewers.
On Nov. 12 at 9 p.m., Law & Order: SVU earned a 2.4 rating in persons 18-49, 7.5 million households and 10 million total viewers. The previous Wednesday’s episode of SVU posted a rating of 1.6 in the key demo and only 7 million total viewers.
At 10 p.m. on Wednesday, SVU’s lead-out, Chicago P.D., earned a 2.2 rating in persons 18-49, 7.25 million households and more than 9.5 million total viewers at 10 p.m. The previous week’s episode earned a 1.4 in the demo with more than 6.4 million total viewers.
Even though Chicago P.D. defeated Chicago Fire in total viewership and household ratings, Fire edged P.D. in the persons 18-49 demo, earning 2.83 million viewers versus the 2.79 million hauled in by P.D. Fire beat P.D. and SVU in the persons 25-54 demo, earning 3.51 million viewers in the demo. SVU scored 3.45 million and P.D. grabbed 3.27 million viewers.
