Chicago Med ratings good as Democratic presidential debate wins for NBC

Chicago Med ratings were solid with a repeat, but the Democratic presidential debate performed far better than One Chicago this Wednesday.

A Chicago Med repeat brought in a decent audience this Wednesday, but NBC‘s decision to show the latest Democratic Presidential debate instead of One Chicago paid off in the ratings.

While Chicago Med was respectable with 5.31 million live viewers (so slightly over half of what a new episode would normally do), the Democratic debate was the most-watched show on TV this Wednesday.

It had over 10 million people watching live, and an impressive 1.8 score amongst viewers 18-49, meaning that it was also the second most popular program among that key demographic.

To put that in context, last week’s new Chicago Fire episode had 8.24 million live viewers at 9 p.m. and the latest Chicago PD recorded 6.98 million at 10 p.m.

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That means the Democratic candidates’ debate brought in 1.76 million more people than Chicago Fire normally does, and over 3 million more than a regular Chicago PD.

Some upset One Chicago fans had called for the Democratic debate to be moved to MSNBC or even canceled because it preempted two of the three Chicago shows. However, viewing statistics show that the majority of network TV viewers wanted to watch the debate.

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The switch also does no real harm to either Chicago Fire or Chicago PD, as the broadcast TV schedule is longer than the 22-24 episodes in a typical season, so there’s always a certain amount of off weeks. The break now should mean the shows don’t have to push pause some other week later.

The repeat Chicago Med, while not a winner, still ranked sixth out of the 14 options on the five broadcast channels Wednesday. That’s good for a repeat, and moreso when it was one of only two repeats on (the other being a repeat Whose Line Is It Anyway? on The CW).

That means a second airing of Med did better than originals on some other networks. The Top 5 consisted of the debate, FOX‘s The Masked Singer, CBS‘s Survivor, and the two final episodes of CBS’ Criminal Minds.

All three One Chicago series will return this coming Wednesday, Feb. 26 in their normal time slots, including a two-show crossover event.

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