The Sunday, Sept. 10, premiere of THE ORVILLE, FOX’s new space adventure series created by and starring Seth MacFarlane, delivered a Live + 35 Day multi-platform audience of 14.5 million viewers, marking a +71% lift from Live + Same Day, and a 3.9/13 L35 rating among Adults 18-49, gaining +44% vs. L+SD (2.7/9), according to Nielsen. The program’s debut marks the network’s most-watched and highest-rated debut since the 2015 launch of EMPIRE*.
THE ORVILLE’s 35-day non-linear audience of 2.6 million viewers also is the network’s largest average audience for a FOX fall drama debut since EMPIRE’s premiere. Moreover, THE ORVILLE is broadcast’s highest-rated scripted series premiere in nearly a year (since 9/21/16, Designated Survivor, 4.8/17 L35*).
THE ORVILLE is FOX’s fifth show from Seth MacFarlane to surpass 10 million total viewers in its premiere, along with “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” (11.1 million 35-day total P2+, 3/9/14), “The Cleveland Show” (10.2 million L7 P2+, 9/27/09), “American Dad” (15.2 million P2+, 2/6/05) and FAMILY GUY (22.0 million P2+, 1/31/99).
In the next all-new episode of THE ORVILLE, “Majority Rule,” airing Thursday, Oct. 26 (9:00-10:00 PM ET) on FOX, two Union anthropologists go missing on a planet similar to 21stcentury Earth, so Ed (MacFarlane) sends a team led by Kelly (Adrianne Palicki) to find them. However, the mission quickly goes awry when they realize the society’s government is completely based on a public voting system to determine punishment.