RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Dracula’, ‘Grimm’ Openers Solid; ‘The Carrie Diaries’ Soft In Return; ‘Shark Tank’ Hits Viewership High

Genre is working well for NBC on Fridays. New vampire drama Dracula opened with a 1.8 rating among adults 18-49 at 10 PM last night, tying the third season premiere of supernatural crime drama Grimm as the two highest rated scripted programs of the night and second highest overall behind ABC‘s Shark Tank (2.0). Despite airing on the low trafficked Friday night, which is traditionally older skewing, Dracula ranked as the No.2 launch for a 10 PM drama in 18-49 this fall behind NBC’s The Blacklist (tied with CBS‘ Hostages). It logged the best 18-49 result for a Friday drama debut since Grimm in October 2011 (2.1). Grimm was even with its Friday premiere last fall (The show’s second series premiere aired on Monday to a 2.0). With Dateline at 8 PM (1.3) flat with last week, NBC won the night in 18-49.

The CW’s struggles with female soaps continue. Introducing Samantha Jones, The Carrie Diaries opened its second season with a 0.3, half of what the series debut logged on Monday in midseason and down a tenth from the finale. While they do poorly on TV, soaps like Carrie Diaries and Hart Of Dixie do well on digital platforms, so the CW, which has the Netflix and Hulu deals, will be doing a lot of number crunching in their performance evaluations. The iHeartRadio Katy Perry special did a 0.2.

ABC’s Shark Tank (2.0, 7.3 million viewers) was up a tenth from its fast national last week (even with the final) to match its season high in 18-49 and log its largest audience for a regular telecast. 20/20 (1.5, 6.6 million) was up 25% in 18-49 and 46% in viewers for its biggest audience in an year and a half. But the network aired comedy repeats in the 8 PM hour, allowing NBC (1.6) to edge it for the night in 18-49 and tying CBS for No. 2 in the demo (1.4). CBS was once again the most watched network by a mile, paced by Blue Bloods (11 million). The network’s dramas Hawaii Five-0 (1.4) and Blue Bloods (1.3) were bullet proof, holding their demo ratings from last week despite increased drama competition from Grimm and Dracula. Undercover Boss (1.6) was down 11%. Fox‘s MasterChef Jr. (1.4) was up a tenth.

 TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.