Preliminary Analysis: It was a slightly more interesting Friday evening for broadcast as ABC swapped out 'Shark Tank' repeats in favor of a '9/11 Remembered' special (0.3). The telecast was a hair below the usual 'Shark Tank' encore but still did okay by Friday summer standards. That says more about how far Nielsen ratings have fallen then the actual strength of the special in question. But there was brighter news for the alphabet network later in the night as '20/20' (0.5) enjoyed a three-tenth spike when compared to its last original.
CBS's 'Love Island' (0.5) somehow managed to rise a tenth to a new season high despite being sandwiched between mediocre encores of 'MacGyver' (0.4) and 'Blue Bloods' (0.3). It's quite surprising that it can do better with a repeat lead-in than a 1.0+ 'Big Brother' but it goes to show that the series is likely lead-in independent.
Fox remained unmatched as the Friday night champion with a steady 'WWE Smackdown' (0.6). NBC's 'Dateline' (0.4) ticked up after an 'America's Got Talent' repeat (0.3). And another double-pump of the CW's 'Being Reuben' (0.0/0.0) was stable with last week but was once more outperformed by repeats of 'Masters of Illusion' (0.1/0.1) that aired before.
