‘Utopia’ Ratings Are Out: ‘Big Brother 16’ Beats Fox Reality Show’s Premiere

The new Fox show Utopia premiered Sunday night and people were very anxious to see what the ratings would look like for the show’s debut. The plus for the new show is that it had some help from football airing just before the debut. On the downside, it was up against the CBS show Big Brother 16, a show that could have some similar viewership. So, how did Utopia’s ratings look?

According to TVLine, Big Brother beat Utopia Sunday night. Now, in all fairness, there was a big event on BB16 that had fans tuning in: Jeff Schroeder proposed to Jordan Lloyd during the show. The first Utopia episode brought in 4.6 million viewers with a 1.9 demo rating. That put it in third place during the hour that had it up against Big Brother and NFL football on NBC. BB16 drew 7.1 million viewers with a 2.3 demo rating.

This new Fox show is an ambitious endeavor. It is based on a Dutch show and the live stream available ahead of the premiere did generate a lot of buzz. There have been fights and hook-ups, and there’s even been one departure already. Reactions to the cast members are varied, with some intrigued and anxious to see how things progress with others thinking it’s an unappealing group with too much drama.

As TV By the Numbers notes, the last season of American Idol premiered with a 4.7 rating in the coveted adults 18-49 rating while The X Factor premiere in 2011 garnered a 4.4 rating. This past season of Survivor had a 2.4 in that same demo. That means that Utopia is under many fellow reality TV shows, but it’s not as if it was a total wipeout.

Utopia will air again on Tuesday and Friday nights, and those nights become slots for the new show. The show will once again be going against Big Brother 16 on Tuesday, though, which shifts to Tuesday and Wednesday nights this week due to Thursday night football on CBS. Many would anticipate that the loss of football on Fox as a lead-in for the Fox show may hurt the next showings of Utopia as well.

As Headline Planet notes, the Utopiaratings were all over the board throughout Sunday’s premiere. It started out fairly high, then slipped, slipped and slipped again. While the initial ratings aren’t necessarily worth sounding alarms over, they aren’t as strong as some had anticipated. Will the show generate enough buzz to pull people in and keep them watching? Many are curious to find out. Stay tuned for more Utopia spoilers and ratings, as well as details for Big Brother 16, as both shows progress this month.

[Image via Christopher Fragapane/FOX]