The Code, with Chicago Med’s Ato Essandoh, solid in return to CBS
The Code ratings were good in its return, which is encouraging for the CBS series that stars Chicago Med alum Ato Essandoh.
The Code returned to CBS on Monday, and delivered decent ratings as the Ato Essandoh drama is still sitting on the bubble between renewal and cancellation.
Monday’s episode “Smoke-Pit,” the first since CBS pulled the freshman series off its schedule last month, was watched by 3.94 million live viewers. That’s lower than its last time out, but it’s not all doom and gloom for the show.
That was good enough for second place in the 9 p.m. hour. While ABC‘s The Bachelorette was the clear winner (5.66 million), FOX and The CW both aired shows that didn’t even approach 2 million, the former being in repeats.
What’s more, that 3.94 number was good enough to be the third most-watched broadcast show across all of Tuesday night. Only The Bachelorette and NBC‘s American Ninja Warrior brought in a bigger audience.
Not bad for a series that’s been off the airwaves for a month and therefore sans momentum.
So what does that mean for the series featuring one of Chicago Med‘s fan favorites?
The live number isn’t spectacular—the One Chicago series were doing somewhere between 6-8 million viewers a week—but you can’t judge The Code the way you would other TV series. This is summer, when ratings are often softer and networks do different things with their schedules.
For example, there’s more reality TV; so if you take out the reality shows, The Code was the most watched show on broadcast TV this Monday.
When you add in the break, the show really shouldn’t be dinged for having a lower live rating, and it’s far from suffering.
One area of concern is that the show isn’t attracting a large amount of adults between the ages of 18-49, which is the key demographic for advertisers. The new episode had just an 0.4 share in the category, which tied it for eighth place out of 13 shows.
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To compare, a great series will normally pull in at least a 0.8 or 0.9, occasionally reaching the 1.0 mark and above.
So while The Code has a good audience, it appears to be skewing much older. Part of that may be the network it airs on; CBS in general attracts older viewers with shows like the NCIS franchise. It still would want the series to bring in at least a decent amount of younger eyeballs, though—so that could work against The Code‘s chances for renewal.
No decision has been made yet, though, and One Chicago fans should tune in to the next fresh episode on Monday, July 8 at 9 p.m. in hopes of trying to keep the series alive.
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