Strong Launch For Kevin Bacon Drama The Following

Fox’s brand new thriller drama The Following, starring Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy, launched at 9pm last night to strong ratings.

According to early overnight figures The Following made its debut with 10.3 million viewers and a 3.2 18-49 rating. That figures makes The Following the second highest new series debut of the season. Only NBC’s Revolution has managed to top those figures. Fox will be very impressed with the figure especially considering how much violence on television has come under the spot light recently.

Elsewhere last night: At 8pm Sex and the City prequel series The Carrie Diaries – starring AnnaSophia Robb and Freema Agyeman – took a tumble in the ratings on The CW. The highly anticipated new drama premiered last week to a soft 1.6 million viewers and for its second episode just 1.2 million returned giving it a 0.5 18-49 rating. However, The Carries Diaries will make up lost ground through DVR figures. CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother was the winner of the 8pm hour with 10 million viewers and a 3.7 18-49 rating followed by a repeat of The Big Bang Theory which had 10.4 million viewers and a 3.2 18-49 rating. ABC’s The Bachelor pulled in 7.4 million viewers with a 2.5 rating between 8-10pm while The Biggest Loser on NBC had 6 million viewers with a 2.4 rating for the same two hour block. Finally crime drama Bones on Fox, starring David Boreanaz, pulled in 8.4 million viewers with a 2.3 rating.

At 9pm, as noted above The Following made its premier on Fox, and elsewhere 2 Broke Girls on CBS was seen by 11.4 million viewers with a 3.7 18-49 rating (winning the hour) while Mike & Molly, which followed, had 10.8 million viewers with a 3.3 18-49 rating. Teen drama 90210 meanwhile had a bad outing with 790,000 viewers and a 0.4 rating. It was recently revealed British singer Olly Murs will perform two songs in a forthcoming episode of 90210 despite being relatively unknown in America.

At 10pm CBS drama Hawaii Five O had 9.5 million viewers with a 2.2 rating while Nathan Fillion drama Castle on ABC mustered 8.7 million viewers with a 2.0 rating. NBC’s struggling series Deception had 3.6 million viewers with a 1.3 rating.

[Written by James Ryder]