The Wiz Helps NBC Regain Its Live Musical Ratings Mojo

Overall, CBS’ football airing on Thursday night was a bit better than “The Wiz” – a Nielsen 3.5/11 share and 12.9 million overall viewers versus a 3.4/11 and 11.5 million viewers for the musical.

In 2013, NBC’s first live musical, The Sound of Music Live, attracted an astounding 18.6 million viewers and a 4.6 rating among adults ages 18-49.

The solid ratings numbers will be a relief for NBC, which said “The Wiz” anchored its second-highest-rated Thursday in more than five years.

With delayed and on-demand viewing becoming more the norm in TV households across the country, NBC’s “The Wiz” showed that live TV can still bring in a big audience. Which musical do you think NBC should do next year?

NBC will re-air the musical on December 19. It was predicted that like the Sound of Music and Peter Pan, The Wiz would be a disappointment in the live TV format – even with its roster of talent. Dan Lovinger, evp, entertainment advertising sales for NBCUniversal, told Adweek that CPMs-the cost of reaching 1,000 viewers-“are up in double digits this year”.

That was a 24% boost over last year’s “Peter Pan Live!“, which was considered a disappointment when it aired.

What did you think of “The Wiz Live”?

The star-studded cast included Queen Latifah, “Glee’s” Amber Riley, singer Mary J. Blige, rapper/actor Common and “Orange is the New Black” actress Uzo Aduba. According to Nielsen, 11M viewers watched the live cast and it also was a massive hit on Twitter, too.

TiVo said the show’s top moment for people rewinding and watching again came when the Munchkins told Dorothy to “follow the yellow-brick road”.