“Younger” comedy series ends season 2 with series-high viewership

PanARMENIAN.Net - TV Land comedy “Younger” capped a solid second season last Wednesday, March 23 by drawing its largest audience to date — and continuing to live up to its name as the show with the youngest audience profile on the network, Variety reports.

The March 23 season finale of the Darren Star-created comedy, which featured a shocking death and unexpected kiss, averaged 1.30 million viewers, including 676,000 adults 18-49, according to Nieslen’s “live plus-3” estimates. This marked the fourth time in the last five weeks that it had set a viewership high, surpassing the previous high of 1.26 million one week earlier.

“Younger” continues to be among the biggest percentage gainers in time-shifted viewing on all of television. Last week’s finale more than doubled in the demo from its same-day delivery (676,000 vs. 291,000) while rising 92% in total viewers (1.30 million vs. 678,000). And for the season, the comedy grew in “live plus-3” on average by 84% in total viewers (614,000 to 1.13 million) and by 139% in adults 18-49 (255,000 to 610,000).

The median age for the Sutter Foster-led comedy was 46 years old in its second season, a big 12 years younger than TV Land’s primetime average (58). And season two skewed four years younger than season one (50). In some categories, including women 18-34, adults 18-34 and women 18-49, “Younger” is drawing four or five times the number of viewers than average for the network, whose other top shows include the network average.

Compared to the season one average, “Younger” finished season two up 64% in adults 18-49, 70% in adults 25-54. Key to the gains has been a surge in VOD viewing, which has nearly tripled as the season wore on. The show’s Jan. 13 premiere averaged 175,000 views and last week’s finale drew 516,000.

“Younger” has also tripled its followers on Instagram, doubled is following on Twitter and saw a 40% increase in Facebook fans from the end of season one to the end of season two, according to the network. Also, the show ranked No. 1 on iTunes Comedy episode downloads two days after the season two launch, and has been in the top 10 every day since.

The show follows Liza (Foster), a 40-year-old woman who pretends to be 26 in order to get a job in the highly competitive world of publishing. Co-stars include Miriam Shor, Debi Mazar, Hillary Duff, Molly Bernard, Dan Amboyer, Nico Tortorella and Peter Hermann. Season three is set to shoot in New York this summer.

Another Wednesday cable series seeing big lifts in L+3 is WGN America’s “Underground,” whose third episode last week surged from its same-day averages by 129% in adults 18-49 (688,000 vs. 301,000), by 139% in adults 25-54 (786,000 vs. 329,000) and by 94% in total viewers (1.74 million vs. 895,000). It was up week to week across the board.