ABC’s “Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration” — starring the Grammy and Oscar-winning musician as HER Belle — carried the network to a broadcast ratings win for Thursday night, per live plus same-day Nielsen figures.
The anniversary special captivated with a 0.79 in the 18–49 demographic, totaling 4.3 million viewers overall. The show, which aired Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET with viewing the following day on Disney+ and Hulu, earned the network a 0.66 in the demo and an average audience of 3.5 million.
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Presented by the anthology series The Wonderful World of Disney, the two-hour reimagining also stars Martin Short (“Lumiere”), Josh Groban (“Beast”), Joshua Henry (“Gaston”), David Alan Grier (“Cogsworth”) Did. , Shania Twain (“Mrs. Potts”), Rizwan Manji (“LeFou”), John John Briones (Belle’s father “Maurice”) and Leo Abello Perry (Mrs. Potts’ son “Chip”), with narrator Rita Moreno. John M. Chu executive produced the hybrid animated/live-action special and Hamish Hamilton serves as director, taking viewers on a memorable journey through the classic enchanted tale.
Here’s how the rest of the night stacked up in the broadcast ratings:
CBS was second in the ratings, behind ABC, averaging a 0.41 in the demo and 5 million total viewers (the highest of the night), propelled by the network’s two-parter Christmas-themed “Ghosts” episode; The sophomore comedy saw a surprise hookup in its last installment before the winter broadcast break, and drew an average of 7 million viewers with a 0.59 in the demo.
NBC was third in ratings and viewership, with a 0.25 in the demo and nearly 2 million average viewers for the night. The network used its “Baking It!” special at 8 p.m. and a 2016 rerun of “Dolly Parton’s Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love” an hour later.
Fox and The CW finished fourth and fifth for the night in both ratings and viewership. The former gained 521,000 viewers in the demo with 0.12 and reruns of programming such as “Welcome to Flach”. The latter network aired the holiday special “Christmas Around USA” with Dean Cain and Laura McKenzie, which received a 0.04 in the ratings and an average of 516,000 viewers for the evening.
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