The reviews for “Swingtown” may not have been great, but U.S. television audiences — at least those not watching the National Basketball Association championship game — didn’t seem to mind as some 8.6 million total viewers tuned in to Thursday night’s premiere of the new CBS program about sexual adventurism in 1970s suburban America.
“Swingtown” garnered 8.6 million total viewers and a 2.7 rating among adults 18-49, while a rival program in the same 10 p.m. hour, ”Fear Itself,” had 5.2 million viewers and a 2 rating among adults 18-49.
On the east coast, “Swingtown” competed with the widely-watched NBA game between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers, which won first-place and relegated “Swingtown” to second. “Fear Itself” came in third.
“Swingtown” replaced “Without a Trace” in the 10 p.m. slot for CBS. By comparison, last week’s episode of “Without a Trace,” which was a rerun, had 8.5 million viewers and a 2.1 rating among adults 18-49, according to Nielsen.
“Swingtown” has won a lot of media attention because it covers a topic – married couples with multiple sex partners — that typically would not be on a broadcast network like CBS and would likely show up on cable TV where standards over what can be put on TV are less restrictive.
While reviews were rough, several of our Fan Fare readers seemed to like it. You can check out the comments on the blog posting from yesterday “‘Sex’ sold, but will ‘Swingtown’? Reviews are in.”
“David” writes “I don’t care what those stuffy newspapers say, I loved Swingtown!”
