Opposite the powerful NBA Finals, NBC’s Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge competition series premiered on Monday to 4.8 million total viewers and a 1.5 demo rating, besting the debut of time slot rival BrainDead.
Spartan also improved upon the year-ago launch of (blast from the past alert!) NBC’s The Island (4 mil/1.2).
Opening the Peacock’s night, American Ninja Warrior‘s time slot premiere (6.8 mil/1.9) was up from both its most recent Wednesday outing (5.8 mil/1.6) and last summer’s Monday opener (5.9 mil/1.8), hitting season highs.
CBS’ aforementioned BrainDead opened to 4.5 mil and a 0.7 (and an average TVLine reader grade of “B-“), leading out of a Scorpion rerun (4.2 mil/0.7).
ABC’s coverage of the NBA Finals Game 5 drew 16.2 million total viewers and a 6.0 rating, up sharply from Game 4’s fast nationals (12.7 mil/4.7) and on track to deliver the best Game 5 numbers since 2004.
Over on Fox, So You Think You Can Dance (3.5 mil/0.8) and Houdini & Doyle (1.8 mil/0.4) each slipped two tenths, while The CW’s Reign (960K/0.3) and Whose Line (1.1 mil/0.4) were steady.
