Once Upon a Time: Premiere Ratings

Last night, ABC unveiled their last new TV show of the fall season, Once Upon a Time. There’s a lot of competition on Sunday nights so, will this new drama be a fairy tale for ABC or a nightmare that’ll soon be cancelled?

Per the fast affiliate ratings, last night’s debut of Once Upon a Time attracted a 3.9 in the 18-49 demographic and 12.8 million viewers. These are especially positive considering it was up against the World Series on FOX and NBC’s Sunday Night Football, big attractions for the other networks.

Year-to-year, ABC was up by 39% in the timeslot, as compared to an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It was up by a whopping 105%, when compared to last week’s episode of Home Edition.

Things look very positive for Snow White and friends so far. Of course, the show’s fate will ultimately be determined by how many people return week after week. Based on feedback from our readers, it seems like most plan to keep watching.

What do you think? Did you watch the first episode of Once Upon a Time? Will you be watching next week?

UPDATE: Here’s the press release from ABC which offers their spin on the numbers.

ABC’s “Once Upon a Time” Opens as the Season’s #1 New Drama

Some early info on ABC’s Sunday, ahead of the regular press release.

More than doubling its Adult 18-49 lead-in at 8pm (+160%) and gaining audience throughout its premiere against the World Series and Sunday Night Football, ABC’s series debut of Once Upon a Time opened with an average audience of 12.8 million viewers and a 3.9 rating, 10 share among Adults 18-49, standing as Sunday’s #1 non-sports program.

· ABC’s Once Upon a Time opened as the season’s #1 drama debut in Adults 18-49. In fact, ABC claims the season’s Top 2 drama debuts with Once Upon a Time and Revenge, respectively.

· Once Upon a Time drew ABC’s biggest audience in the time period with regular programming in over 3-1/2 years and its top Adult 18-49 number in nearly 3 years – since 3/30/08 and 11/2/08, respectively.

· In Total Viewers and Adults 18-49, Once Upon a Time stands as Sunday’s biggest non-NFL-driven drama debut in 5 years – since ABC’s Brothers & Sisters on 9/24/06.