‘The Conners’ ratings lower than ‘Roseanne’ in premiere

ABC

• ABC’s “Roseanne” spin-off, “The Conners,” debuted on Tuesday
  to 10.5 million viewers.
• That’s not as high as the “Roseanne” premiere earlier this
  year, but on par with industry predictions.
• “If we can capture even half of ‘Roseanne’s’ audience
  from last year, we’ll be the number one new show for the
  season,” ABC exec Andy Kubitz told Vulture.

“The Conners,” ABC’s spin-off of “Roseanne,” premiered Tuesday
without Roseanne Barr. While the numbers don’t match those of the
“Roseanne” reboot earlier this year, ABC didn’t need them to.

“If we can capture even half of ‘Roseanne’s’ audience from
last year, we’ll be the number one new show for the
season,” Andy Kubitz, ABC’s executive VP for programming
strategy and scheduling, told Vulture.

But how did “The Conners” do?

The show premiered to 10.5 million viewers, according to
Entertainment
Weekly. 
That’s on par with analyst
projections, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and
above half of the “Roseanne” premiere, which debuted to 18.2 million viewers for its
hour-long premiere in March. 

Some may have tuned in to see how the show handled the
departure of Barr. In the new series, Barr’s character, Roseanne
Conner, dies due to an opioid overdose. Executive producer Tom
Werner explained that this was a theme “very relevant to our
audience.”

“We’re doing a comedy, but this is a problem that has
affected tens of thousands of people, opioid addiction,” he said.
“This was a challenge that Roseanne Conner was dealing with last
year, and we felt that this was something that could shine a
light on something.”

Barr herself said in a statement after the show
aired that she didn’t like the way ABC killed off her
character.

“That it was done through an opioid overdose lent an
unnecessary grim and morbid dimension to an otherwise happy
family show,” said Barr and her Rabbi and friend, Rabbi Shmuley
Boteach. “This was a choice the network did not have to make.
‘Roseanne’ was the only show on television that directly
addressed the deep divisions threatening the very fabric of our
society.”

“Roseanne” dipped in viewership over the course of its
revival season, but the finale in May still had 10.3 million
viewers. 
It remains the biggest show of the
year, but was cancelled after Barr tweeted a racist remark at
former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett.

Time will tell if “The Conners” can hold on to an audience
for its 10-episode season. But even if its finale gets half the
viewers as the “Roseanne” finale, it will still be satisfying for
ABC.