TV Ratings: ‘Night Court’ Is NBC’s Best Comedy Debut in Five Years

NBC‘s update of Night Court opened to a big audience on Tuesday — bigger than any comedy on the network in more than five years.

The update of the 1980s-90s sitcom, starring The Big Bang Theory’s Melissa Rauch and original series fixture John Larroquette, delivered 7.55 million viewers for its series premiere on Tuesday. That’s the highest same-day viewership for an NBC comedy since September 2017, when Will & Grace’s return drew 10.19 million. A second episode Tuesday retained more than 90 percent of the premiere’s audience, coming in at 6.94 million viewers.

The premiere was also the largest same-day audience for any comedy on TV this season, topping the 7.43 million for an episode of CBS’ Young Sheldon on Jan. 5.

In the key ad-sales demographic of adults 18-49, the two episodes of Night Court posted ratings of 0.98 and 0.94 — the highest marks for any network entertainment show this season that didn’t have an NFL game as a lead-in. (Several episodes of The Simpsons and a Thanksgiving night edition of The Masked Singer on Fox have topped 1.0 ratings following NFL games.)

NBC also said that the Night Court premiere added about 450,000 viewers and 0.2 ratings points in the 18-49 demographic on Peacock, for totals of 8 million viewers and 1.2 in the demo. The second episode grew by about 260,000 viewers to 7.2 million and added 0.16 to its 18-49 rating for a 1.1 with Peacock included.

The two-hour series finale of New Amsterdam followed Night Court with 3.15 million viewers and a 0.36 rating in the 18-49 demo. Both figures are above the show’s same-day season averages.

Elsewhere, ABC’s The Rookie continued to benefit from its move to Tuesday nights, drawing a season-high 4.77 million viewers and a 0.6 in adults 18-49. The Rookie: Feds (2.99 million, 0.37) and Will Trent (3.32 million, 0.35) improved over last week as well (it probably didn’t hurt that CBS aired repeats of its FBI franchise). Fox’s The Resident (2.98 million viewers, 0.37 in 18-49) closed its season a bit above average.

Jan. 19, 12:50 p.m. Updated with Night Court streaming figures.