Chicago Med hits series low in latest season 6 ratings

Chicago Med achieved a ratings record on Wednesday—but in the wrong direction.

According to TVLine, the live ratings for this week’s episode “For the Want of a Nail” were the lowest in the show’s history. The episode reached 6.8 million live viewers.

It’s a sharp decline from the previous week, where the One Chicago medical drama pulled in 7.3 million people and was March 10th’s most watched broadcast TV show.

That sounds like terrible news, and it’s certainly worth being concerned over; the 0.5 drop means a loss of a half-million viewers week to week. But it might not be as grim as the report makes it out to be.

More from One Chicago Center

• Chicago Med star on 2024 cast changes: ‘Nice to have new faces’
• Here’s the perfect Chicago Fire episode to watch on Thanksgiving
• Ranking the 8 NCIS Thanksgiving episodes from worst to best
• Mark Harmon does NOT have plans to reprise Gibbs on NCIS
• One Chicago stars tease new seasons on IG: ‘Here we come’

6.8 million was second only to Chicago Fire (7.2) in total viewers and still much better than the ratings for Chicago PD (at 6.1).

It was also much stronger than shows on the other broadcast TV networks; FOX’s reality hit The Masked Singer, for one example, pulled in 4.8 million people who watched live. That’s still two million people less than were tuned into Med.

Watch One Chicago on fuboTV: Watch over 67 live sports and entertainment channels with a 7-day FREE trial!

Therefore, hitting a series low is far from a death knell for One Chicago’s medical series. It maintains ratings better than its competition, and it’s worth remembering that NBC already renewed the show through season 8 last year.

While renewals have been overturned, it’s highly unlikely that the network would do that to Med considering how much they’ve invested in One Chicago as a brand and the close relationship they have with executive producer Dick Wolf.

The caveat, of course, is to see if the numbers keep declining. Viewers have pointed out a few different concerns with the series over the last few seasons, such as major cast changes, more of an emphasis on the characters’ romantic relationships, and a lack of consequences for people’s actions.

Wednesday’s episode was an example of some of those things: its main plot was about the relationship between Crockett and Natalie, and Natalie (Torrey DeVitto) used Crockett (Dominic Rains) to help her undermine another doctor, but only got scolded by Dr. Ethan Choi (Brian Tee).

If viewers really are getting less interested in the direction the show is going, then the live ratings should continue to decrease, and that would be cause for concern and/or potentially changing up things creatively.  But if the numbers bounce back up in a week or two, then this can be looked at as just a bad outing, and the show is clearly still bringing in an audience despite the critiques.

We’ll find out when the next new episode airs in two weeks, on March 31.

For the latest Chicago Med season 6 spoilers and news, plus more on the entire series, follow the Chicago Med category at One Chicago Center.