Grandfathered, Grinder premiere ratings: Plus, S.H.I.E.L.D., Muppets, Best Time Ever, The Voice, Scream Queens

Heavy competition from The Voice and those puppets on ABC made for a tough night, but Fox doesn’t seem too disappointed about the Tuesday premieres of Grandfathered and The Grinder. The John Stamos comedy about a playboy who finds out he’s a father and granddad earned a 1.5 rating among adults 18–49 — bettering the performance of New Girl in the same time slot last fall by 15 percent, according to Nielsen.

At 8:30 p.m., the Rob Lowe comedy managed to hold onto 100 percent of its Stamos lead-in and boosted the time-slot performance by 36 percent versus the year-ago performance by The Mindy Project. Fox projects both comedies to get at least a 50 percent boost in delayed viewing in the next seven days.

Each 18–49 ratings point equals 1.27 million viewers.

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Fox’s other newbie Scream Queens saw an 18 percent dip in its 18–89 performance(1.4) but the show remains No. 1 among women 18–34 and female teens. It also saw a sizable boost last week with DVRs: Fox reported that the combined video-on-demand and streaming audience for the drama’s premiere after the first three days exceed Empire’s season 1 premiere (1.8 million vs. 1.7 million). For now, this is definitely a show that the kids like to DVR.

Tuesday also marked the return of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC, where it earned a 1.7 rating among 18–49 and averaged 4.8 million viewers.The second outing of The Muppets was ABC’s best performer at 2.0 rating, though that’s down 31 percent from last week’s 2.9.

NBC was the winner of the night in the key demo thanks to The Voice, which averaged a 3.6 rating and 13.2 million viewers. That certainly helped Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris, which earned a 2.0.

As expected, CBS attracted the most eyeballs with NCIS, the night’s most-watched program at 16 million viewers. Go, Team Harmon! NCIS: New Orleans (1.7) and Limitless (1.9) managed to stay even with last wee’s premiere numbers.