The "Every Episode, Every Rating" series
takes a look at the highs and lows a program posted during its full run. Praise or criticism is in reference to the program's performance in the Nielsen ratings.
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| Photo Credit: ABC |
Coming onto the scene during the dying days of the 2010s, Mixed-ish was the second spinoff to ABC's popular sitcom Black-ish, a series that had already spawned Freeform's Grown-ish a year prior. The sitcom chronicled the childhood of Rainbow "Bow" Johnson as she made her way through the 1980s as a biracial preteen. Although Black-ish performed fairly well for its first three seasons, its ratings predictably took a nosedive once it moved away from the cushiony post-Modern Family timeslot. Considering it had just fallen a whopping 34% during the 2018-19 season, ordering a spinoff seemed like a questionable move on the alphabet network's part. Nonetheless, ABC seemed determined to make the situation work. Mixed-ish was given the 9pm anchor slot on Tuesday nights, sandwiched between promising sophomore Bless This Mess and a fading Black-ish. It's quite rare for a new comedy to be placed in the lead-off position and even more uncommon for a spinoff to be the lead-in to its parent program. All this meant was that ABC had high hopes for the Kenya Barris project and had given it enough of a chance to succeed.
Fall 2019:
Mixed-ish began on solid footing for its series premiere, posting a healthy 0.9 rating and building from a disappointing Bless This Mess (0.8). Mess had lost nearly 40% of its Conners lead-in (1.3), so it was quite an impressive feat for Mixed-ish to actually grow from that point. Despite the nice start, Mixed-ish was never able to beat out its lead-in after that, with the series either tying Mess or falling a tenth behind it. The sitcom took a modest dip to a 0.7 rating in week 2 and stayed at that range for most of October, even inching up to a rounded 0.8 rating for the October 29th installment. Things took a turn for the worse in November as Mixed-ish returned to a 0.59 after the entire comedy block took a week off for The Little Mermaid Live!. It failed to recover from that point, posting two more 0.6s and then dropping down to a dreadful 0.5 rating for its winter finale, losing over 40% of its premiere rating in a matter of 10 episodes.
Winter & Spring 2020:
After closing out its fall stint on a sour note, Mixed-ish received the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of being the direct lead-out to the first game of the Jeopardy: Greatest of All Time tournament (2.4). Mixed-ish exploded to a massive 1.1 rating, nearly doubling its previous episode from December. Although it barely retained more than 40% of the Jeopardy audience, this January 7th installment served as a new series high and the first (and only) time it broke the 1.0 threshold. The spinoff series got the Jeopardy stimulus package the following week as well, with the final Greatest of All Time game garnering a slightly weaker, albeit still monstrous, 1.9 rating on January 14th. This time around, Mixed-ish could only muster up a 0.7 rating, losing well over 60% of its lead-in. Any good will that came from leading out of the Alex Trebek game-show completely evaporated afterwards, as the freshman comedy crashed to a 0.48 and then to a 0.46, going below even its 2019 low. Bad turned to worse during the February 11th outing as this marked the first instance where ish lost two-tenths from Bless This Mess instead of the usual one. The sitcom failed to rise above a 0.5 rating during the month of February.
With viewers departing and ratings dwindling, Mixed-ish got its second lifeline in the form of tragedy. March 2020 was the month when COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic. As more and more people stayed inside due to the shutdowns, TV ratings experienced an unprecedented spike across the board. What was usually a period when ratings fell further became one where shows reached their highest levels yet. Mixed-ish wasn't quite able to set a new high but did jump to a 0.65 rating for its first lockdown-fueled broadcast. Excluding the Jeopardy-charged outings, this March 17th episode was its strongest performance since October 2019. The boost slowly wore off from there, with the following three episodes each shedding a few hundredths (0.61-0.55-0.47). The series closed out its first season with a measly 0.48 rating on May 5th. Although that rating was nothing to write home about, it was slightly above its series low (0.46) and likely much higher than it would have been without COVID in the picture. A second season was ordered despite its shortcomings in the Nielsen department, though it would not make it back to the roster for another eight months.
Winter & Spring 2021:
Taking into account the extended hiatus and timeslot change, the 0.59 rating that Mixed-ish garnered for its season 2 premiere was shockingly strong and just a few hundredths behind Black-ish (0.64). The series had had its anchor slot revoked after its subpar performance the previous season, now leading out of Black-ish instead of leading into it in the 9:30 timeslot. Anthony Anderson-hosted To Tell the Truth occupied the 8pm slot since The Conners had been shipped to Wednesdays and Bless This Mess had been canceled, making the 8-10pm stretch a fairly compatible lineup. Mixed-ish never found its way back to that level since the entire block took a hit the week after. The sophomore sitcom dropped to a 0.46 and tied its series low, then created a new one for its next episode (0.43). The series hovered around that level for a bit longer but somehow managed to dip to an even weaker 0.36 on March 2nd and March 23rd. Outside of a brief uptick to a 0.40, on the evening when Truth was replaced with Pooch Perfect at 8, the comedy only slipped from there. Its last five episodes were all at a pathetic 0.3 rating and below 2 million viewers. Coming four days after its cancellation announcement, the series finale managed to post its worst demo rating yet (0.30), serving as a miserable but fitting end to the 36-episode run of Mixed-ish.
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| Photo Credit: ABC |
Post-Mortem:
Above all else, the commercial failure of Mixed-ish cannot be blamed on the network or any timeslot it aired in. The series lucked out in a way few others do during its first season, first getting the massive Jeopardy lead-in two weeks in a row and then getting to air during the beginning of the lockdowns. While it initially benefited from both situations, it failed to take away any long-term benefit from them. It had none of those lucky moments in season two and its true strength, or lack thereof, was revealed for all to see. In the end, this was a show that seemed dependent on how well the block as a whole was performing. It rose and fell alongside the others and it barely felt like it had an audience of its own. While it did always seem to start well for its premieres and did grow slightly from black-ish for the April 6th episode, those felt more like flukes than evidence that the series was becoming a stronger player.
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