Not only is last night’s live broadcast production of The Wiz on NBC garnering far better reviews than Peter Pan — the Allison Williams-starring spectacle NBC put on last year as part of this unofficially annual tradition — it also, it turns out, scored far better ratings.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the musical TV experience based on the 1975 Broadway production and starring Shanice Williams, Queen Latifah, Uzo Aduba, Mary J. Blige and Common scored a 4.4 rating among the key demographic of viewers between 18 and 49, whereas Peter Pan‘s rating was 2.2. TVLine reports that it earned 11.1 million viewers. Outside of sports broadcasts, the event gave NBC the highest rated Thursday in local markets in almost three years, and was the top-rated Thursday in local people meters since the second evening of the ER finale on April 2, 2009.
That being said, it still didn’t beat the record of The Sound of Music, which scored a 4.6 rating within the same demographic — but it was still a massive comeback following very tepid responses to Peter Pan.