One Chicago ratings tumble as reruns stretch into finale season

One Chicago ratings have fallen significantly as Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med move closer to their original season finale dates.

One Chicago viewers are losing interest in their favorite shows as repeats fill the space where some of the season’s biggest episodes should have been.

While ratings for Chicago Med, Chicago Fire and Chicago PD reruns were initially healthy, they dropped significantly last week—indicating that despite fans’ passion for the franchise, they’re not tuning in to watch anymore.

Chicago Med fell underneath four million viewers for the third broadcast of “Who Knows What Tomorrow Brings,” which had already re-aired in February. It also lost a tenth among adults 18-49, falling from an 0.6 share to 0.5.

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That was to be expected, since NBC was rolling out that episode for the third time; as much as people don’t like repeats, they’re even less interested if it’s a repeat of an installment that has already been repeated. But the same decline also befell both Chicago PD and Chicago Fire.

Chicago Fire‘s encore of “Welcome to Crazytown” fell from almost 4.5 million people watching live down to 4.1 million; that’s a decrease of a little less than 400,000 viewers that went elsewhere in the 9 p.m. hour.

And at 10 p.m. the Chicago PD rebroadcast of “Brother’s Keeper” dropped from 4.27 million eyeballs down to 4.03 million. It also lost a tenth amongst adults 18-49 to finish at 0.5 in the demo.

Since the rerun period began in April, NBC has fallen from the most-watched broadcast TV network on Wednesday nights to third in total viewers and fourth in the key demo. Only The CW currently has a smaller audience among adults 18-49.

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That’s not an encouraging sign, not only for the network but for the One Chicago franchise. NBC has normally hesitated to air reruns during the offseason, even while rolling out repeats of other primetime shows.

Yet current events gave viewers the first consistent One Chicago repeats in years—and if they keep sliding downward in ratings, there’d be no reason for NBC to drop them again in the future. Having old episodes of fans’ favorite shows is at least better than not having them on at all, but they’ll only be there if people are watching.

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