For the third time in six weeks, CBS’ “The Bold and the Beautiful” hit yet another new season-high in Total Viewers during the week of May 9-13, 2022 according to newly released figures from Nielsen Media Research and marking the show’s most-watched week overall since the week of April 20-24, 2020, the final week of pre-pandemic originals.
The half-hour drama series averaged 3.320 million viewers, up +212,000 viewers week to week and up +515,000 viewers over the comparable week last year (week of May 10-14, 2021). In fact, just 205,000 viewers separated the soap from its lead-in, “The Young and the Restless” (3.525 million), marking the smallest gap between the two shows among viewers since at least the week of October 5-9, 2020.
Among Women 25-54, “B&B” ranked first for the week with a 0.7 rating, tied with the second half-hour of “The Price is Right” (4.393 million) and “Y&R.” The soap tied for second place in Women 18-49 with a 0.4 rating, tied with the first half-hour of “The Price is Right” (3.842 million), “Y&R,” “TODAY 3rd Hour” (1.974 million) and “General Hospital” (2.268 million).
Powering the soap was the revelation by others that Sheila Carter (Kimberlin Brown) was behind the shooting death of her son, Finn (Tanner Novlan), and the attempted murder of her daughter-in-law, Steffy (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) – Sheila shot both after they learned she was behind the switcheroo that led Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang) into breaking her sobriety as Sheila placed a non-alcoholic beverage label over an alcohol-infused bottle of champagne.
Up +1.523 million viewers over the comparable week’s performance in 2020 (week of May 11-15, 2020), when it aired its third consecutive week of classic episodes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic production shutdown, “B&B” remains one of only three daytime broadcast shows to see similar or improved numbers over its Total Viewers performance prior to or during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Y&R” and “GH” were the other two series to see their numbers grow or stabilize during the same period.
Check back soon for a full look at how daytime broadcast performed during the week of May 9-13, 2022.