Preliminary Analysis: On a night packed with finales, 'American Idol' (1.0) took the top spot as far as originals go. The singing competition series was steady week-to-week but still paled in comparison to its year-ago closer (1.5). It was sandwiched between a solid 'AFV @ Home' (0.7) at 7 and a poorly-rated Taylor Swift special (0.5) at 10.
Some indirect NASCAR juice in the 7pm hour helped 'The Simpsons' (0.6), 'Duncanville' (0.4), and 'Bob's Burgers' (0.5) all rise a tenth for their finales. 'Family Guy' (0.5) was steady for its at 9:30. Despite the upticks, the inflated repeats of 'The Simpsons' (1.1) and 'Bob's Burgers' (0.6) beat out the original episodes of those shows in the 7pm hour. On a year-to-year basis, 'Simpsons' was actually up a tick from last year. 'Bob's' was a tenth below its year-ago closer while 'Family Guy' was two-tenths below the 0.7 rating it posted last year.
CBS had a stable '60 Minutes' (0.7) leading into a presentation of the Tom Cruise film 'Mission Impossible' (0.4). The latter trailed last week's showing of 'Forest Gump' (0.7). The night was capped off with a random repeat of recently-canceled 'Man with a Plan' (0.3). One can only wonder why CBS would air encores of a show they removed from their roster.
NBC's 'Little Big Shots' (0.3) was even at 7pm but 'The Wall' (0.3) dropped down to a nasty new low for a 10pm edition. In the middle was an equally low-rated 'Beverly Hills Dog Show' (0.3). The CW saw an uptick for the 'Supergirl' finale (0.2) while 'Batwoman' (0.2) held steady.
Final Update: The repeat of Bob's Burgers (-0.1) adjsuted down.
(R) = repeat
(F) = finale
