“Last Man Standing” debuted its seventh season on Fox Friday night, with the Tim Allen-led sitcom rocketing past its previous season numbers on ABC.
“Last Man Standing” averaged a 1.8 rating in adults 18-49 and 8 million viewers, airing at 8 p.m. By comparison, the Season 6 premiere on ABC drew a 1.1 rating and 6 million viewers, while that season as a whole averaged a 1.2 rating and 6.4 million viewers. In fact, the last time the series drew over 8 million viewers was back in its fourth season, and the last time it drew a 1.8 rating or better was in Season 2. It was also Fox’s most watched comedy on any night in nearly seven years, excluding NFL nights, and was by far the top-rated show of Friday night.
That made for an excellent lead-in for freshman series “The Cool Kids,” with the series premiere of that show drawing a 1.5 and 6.8 million viewers at 8:30. The season premiere of “Hell’s Kitchen” followed at 9 with a 0.9 and 3.1 million viewers, even with last season’s debut. Between the three shows, Fox had its most watched Friday with entertainment in over nine and a half years and it’s highest-rated Friday during premiere week in seven years.
On CBS, the season premiere of “MacGyver” (0.7, 5.8 million) ticked down in both measures from last season’s premiere, as did “Hawaii Five-O” (0.9, 7.4 million) and “Blue Bloods” (0.9, 8.7 million).
NBC aired mostly repeats except for the Friday premiere of “Dateline NBC” (0.7, 3.9 million).
ABC ran the special “Truth & Lies: Jonestown, Paradise Lost” (0.6, 3.1 million) and “20/20” (0.7, 3.5 million).
A new episode of “Masters of Illusion” on CW (0.2, 1.2 million) was up in total viewers.