Uncle Buck [ABC]
ABC’s “Uncle Buck,” which premiered to promising numbers last week, suffered substantial week-to-week declines in adults 18-49 and total viewership.
According to live+same-day data posted by Showbuzz, Tuesday’s back-to-back “Uncle Buck” episodes averaged a 1.0 adults 18-49 rating and 3.47 million total viewers in the 9PM hour.
While not terrible for a summer comedy, they markedly trail the 1.5 and 4.96 million averaged by last week’s surprisingly strong debut episodes.
Of relevance is the fact that this week’s episode received considerably weaker lead-in support.
Last week’s episode followed “To Tell The Truth,” which drew a 1.0 rating and 5.21 million total viewers. This week’s followed a lower-rated combination of comedy re-runs; “The Middle” drew a 0.7 and 3.00 million at 8PM, while “black-ish” posted a 0.6 and 2.49 million in the directly supporting 8:30PM slot.
Granted, in outdrawing its lead-in among 18-49 and in skewing much more heavily toward young adults, the “Uncle Buck” premiere proved to be a self-starter with an independent audience of curious viewers. It is consequently difficult to justify blaming the entirety of this week’s decline on the weakened lead-in.
It seems fair to blame at least part of the decline on the show’s failure to hook all those who sampled last week’s premiere.