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SWAT ratings for Oct. 16: Season 3, Episode 3 struggles on busy night

By Brittany Frederick

"Funny Money" - The SWAT team bumps heads with Lt. Lynch when she signs them up for an off-book undercover operation to take down a local gang printing counterfeit money, without giving them enough time to prepare for the mission. Also, tensions rise at home for Hondo as his parents' strained relationship becomes worse, on S.W.A.T., Wednesday, Oct. 16 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured (L-R): Jay Harrington as David "Deacon" Kay and Alex Russell as Jim Street. Photo: Robert Voets/CBS ©2019 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved
"Funny Money" - The SWAT team bumps heads with Lt. Lynch when she signs them up for an off-book undercover operation to take down a local gang printing counterfeit money, without giving them enough time to prepare for the mission. Also, tensions rise at home for Hondo as his parents' strained relationship becomes worse, on S.W.A.T., Wednesday, Oct. 16 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured (L-R): Jay Harrington as David "Deacon" Kay and Alex Russell as Jim Street. Photo: Robert Voets/CBS ©2019 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved /
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SWAT ratings were fair but not as expected for Season 3, Episode 3 during a competitive week. Check out the latest SWAT numbers.

This week’s episode of SWAT ran into stiff competition,  and the result was a disappointing outcome for the CBS reboot. Is the show running out of steam in Season 3?

Wednesday’s installment “Funny Money” dealt with counterfeit funds, and tension between Lieutenant Lynch and the squad. It also featured a guest appearance by the legendary Debbie Allen, who returned as Hondo’s (Shemar Moore) mom, Charice Harrelson.

But TV viewers weren’t biting.

On an evening dominated by NBC’s One Chicago franchise and reality TV (new episodes of The Masked Singer and Survivor), the SWAT ratings dropped toward the bottom of the broadcast TV charts.

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“Funny Money” brought in 3.60 million live viewers, which was down compared to last Wednesday’s 3.72 million (a loss of -0.12, or 120,000).

That doesn’t sound too terrible; it’s not a massive week-to-week difference. But the cause for alarm comes when you look at it within the context of the entire evening.

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There were 15 shows that aired on broadcast TV on Oct. 16, and SWAT ranked a disappointing 9th in total viewers.

Amongst adults 18-49, which is the main section of viewers that networks and advertisers target, it only scored a 0.5 share—which was 13th out of 15.

And more worryingly, this is the second week in a row that the series has been that low in both of these categories.

Right now, the only shows drawing less of the key demo than SWAT are The CW’s freshman Nancy Drew and teen drama Riverdale. So fans should definitely start to be concerned.

SWAT season 3 has been an interesting one for the CBS series, which phased out Stephanie Sigman’s Captain Cortez and replaced her with Lynch (Amy Farrington) and has tried different plots such as pursuing the leader of a doomsday cult.

But live ratings have been down from last season, when the show was routinely over 5 million live audience members. It’s possible that more people may have DVR’ed the show this week, either to watch NBC’s special event or because of MLB postseason baseball—but because this installment isn’t the only one that’s ranked so low overall, it’s worth keeping an eye on to see if the live figures change once those things are no longer in the way.

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SWAT Season 3 doesn’t seem to be striking the same chord with TV viewers that the series did in past seasons, but we’re still only three episodes in. There’s plenty of time for the show to pick up its numbers.

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