Hard Numbers: Daytime Could Have New Talk Show Faves With ‘Sherri’ and ‘The Jennifer Hudson Show’ Making Impressive Debuts

Niecy Nash - Don’t Forget The Lyrics/Fox

Contestant: Fox's Don't Forget the Lyrics revival has a photo finish with Fox's Beat Shazam. With new host Niecy Nash, Fox revived the early 2000s musical-competition show earlier this year. The series finished its first season in mid-September, and while there has been no official word of a season two, the Hard Numbers wrap-up shows identical rating averages compared to season 5 of Fox's Beat Shazam. Both Fox gameshows concluded their respective seasons last month, and both averaged 1.8 million total viewers and 489,600 viewers in the target demographic of adults 18-48. 

The classics that will always continue— Family Feud, hosted by comedian Steve Harvey, is entering the Fall season with a great start. The gameshow classic averaged nearly 5.998 million this month in live-plus-same-day national Nielsen viewership ratings— topping the weekly syndication charts four weeks in a row. For September, Family Feud outperformed other game show classics (Jeopardy… we're talking about Jeopardy), with over 857,000 viewers. But the rating pendulum is constantly swinging, and this ongoing tug-o-war between these two gameshows will likely go on for eternity.

The other neverending classic, NBC's Let's Make a Deal averaged 489,600 views last month in the target demographic of women 25-54 and 2.22 million views overall.

Sherri Shepard - Sherri & Jennifer Hudson - The Jennifer Hudson Show

Informative: Last month was the debut of many long-anticipated talk shows like Sherri and The Jennifer Hudson Show. Sherri is the network's replacement for The Wendy Williams Show, with the series inheriting The Wendy Show's production crew and daytime timeslot. Both series premiered on September 12 and amassed the same average of 856,800 total viewers. Disney's Tamron Hall has kept consistent ratings over the summer and has slightly risen since the last roundup— averaging 820,000 in viewership.

Another daytime favorite, The View, averaged 2.2 million views, with 489,600 being in the target demo of women 18 to 49. The Talk underperformed in comparison with a total average of 1.3 million views and 244,800 being in the target demographic. The celebrity news source, Entertainment Tonight, averaged 2.326 million viewers last month, seeing more of a rise in views as the summer ends. NBC Nightly News with Lestor Holt averaged 6.2 million viewers and reportedly had a steady decline compared to the average ratings last year. Still, it does have a consistent following on YouTube. Full weekday episodes of NBC Nightly News have earned an average of 557,000 views on the official channel.

Meanwhile, at the cable news desk, The Chris Salcedo Show currently ranks third as The Top Newsmax show with an average audience total of 224,333 views last month and 22,000 in the target demographic of people 25 to 54. Don Lemon Tonight isn't CNN's highest-rated news program, averaging 651,833 total views for most of September and 100,000 in the target demographic. The Faulkner Focus on Fox saw a rise since August averaging 1.694 million viewers, with 200,000 hitting the target demographic. MSNBC's The ReidOut also averaged higher than its previous month's rating, with 1.303 million viewers total and 150,000 viewers in the target demographic.

Lauren Lake - We The People With Lauren Lake

Court: A new judge has entered the courtroom ring— We the People with Lauren Lake premiered on September 12 and averaged a total viewership of 367,200. The People's Court with Judge Marilyn Milian saw a bounce back from last month's rating dip, averaging a higher viewership of 856,800. Meanwhile, Divorce Court and Judge Mathis ended September with 612,000 average views.