With this year’s Independence Day falling on a Saturday, it was inevitable that the annual Macy’s 4th Of July Fireworks Spectacular (0.9/6) wasn’t going to be as explosive as previous celebrations. And with an 18% drop among adults 18-49 from 2014 that fizzle was exactly what happened on a much more competitive night than last year. Besides the bright lights above the NYC skyline, the 2-hour NBC show had performances from Kelly Clarkson, Brad Paisley, the U.S. Air Force Band and the timely debut of Gloria Estefan’s new “America” tune. Compared to the Friday fireworks of last year, last night’s efforts also saw a total viewership dip of 9% to 4.9 million.
Now, looking back to the last time the Macy’s fireworks were on NBC on a Saturday, last night’s bright lights, boom, boom were actually up 10% in the demo and 20% in viewers from 2009. There is a caveat however to those rises. The 2009 Macy’s fireworks was a 1-hour show from 9 – 10 PM. So the 2015 percentage rises are from the second hour of last night’s show compared to the full performance of 6 years ago. Macy’s and NBC didn’t extend the fireworks and more to a 2-hour show until 2013. With an edited repeated of the fireworks getting a 0.9/5 at 10 PM, NBC won America’s 239th birthday with 0.9/5 overall rating and 4.72 million viewers.
There was nothing new on ABC last night but Fox was well in the game with MLB Baseball (0.6/4). And, in relative terms, it was a home run with the net’s regionalized coverage of America’s pastime up 100% from its June 27 broadcast. As is always the case with live sports, those preliminary numbers will likely see adjustment later but it’s safe to say Fox sent off some fireworks of their own with those July 4th results.
CBS celebrated the 4th by burning off episodes of the now cancelled The Millers at 8 PM (0.4/2) and 8:30 PM (0.3/2) and The McCarthys, which got a 0.4/2 at 9 PM and 9:30 PM. The former was down 73% and 80% from its last original of November 17 last year while the latter fell 75% from its last new show on January 29. God Bless America!
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