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Was The Debut Of Deception Successful?

by Anya Rahming on January 8, 2013

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Last night at 10:00 PM Meagan Good’s new show Deception aired on NBC. For the sake of a headline, some reviewers are calling it a flop. This is a shameless attempt to gain page views. Others are saying it helped NBC win the ratings last night. This is a bit of an exaggeration as well. So what is the real story? The Deception premier did okay.

Lets talk numbers:

Deception debuted at 10:00 PM on Monday night to these results:

5.6 million total viewers
Won its time slot among 18-49 year old viewers

While it beat out its ABC network competitor Castle for the target age group in the time slot, it did not beat the show in eyeballs. ABC’s Castle had 8.6 million total viewers (stats from Zap2it). Keep in mind that this show is established and returning from a break in its 5th season.

With no other real competition, Deception landed comfortably in 2nd place.

No it didn’t blow other shows out of the water, set a ratings record (low or high), or cause a national power outage. However its targeting a small audience of nighttime soap viewers, it wasn’t mass marketed until very late – in my opinion – and it stars a Black female lead. This is not a recipe for an earth shattering debut. Certainly NBC is well aware of these points and was prepared for the results.

Let’s consider more facts:

The show has been on demand for a week
The show has been available to watch online for since mid-December 2012

Let’s compare:

ABC’s Scandal debuted to 7.4 million viewers last year. Its hovered around this number each week since, yet received a full second season.

Last night NBC’s well established reality program The Biggest Loser debuted the 2nd part of its season opener right before Deception and had only 6.34 million viewers.

Conclusion: Deception – Not too bad for a new show trying to find its footing.

All that aside, here’s a tweet sent last night from one of the shows stars, Laz Alonso:

Laz Alonso ?@lazofficial My mom is waiting for 10pm to turn on her 4 T.V.’s & told her tenant she needs 2 turn on both hers too lmao!!! @NBCDeception now on@nbc