Live + 7 Ratings: ABC's "Modern Family" Is the Week's #1 Biggest Broadcast Gainer in TV Playback in Adults 18-49

Live + 7 Day ratings for the week of 11/17/14 (Week #9):

Please note: most of ABC's regular Sunday line-up (Once Upon a Time, Resurrection and Revenge) was pre-empted for the American Music Awards.

ABC claimed the week's #1 biggest broadcast gainer in TV playback among Adults 18-49, with Modern Family (+2.3 rating points) topping the L+7 gain of CBS' The Big Bang Theory (+2.2) for the 2nd time in 4 weeks. Further, despite a number of pre-emptions on Sunday, ABC still had 6 of the Top 10 biggest broadcast gainers of the week among young adults, while CBS had 4, NBC had 3 and Fox had 1: Modern Family (+2.3) - #1, How to Get Away with Murder (+2.0) - #3, Scandal (+1.6) - #5, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (+1.3) and Grey's Anatomy (+1.3) tied for #7 and Castle (+1.1) - #10.

For the 2nd week in a row, ABC's Forever doubled its L+SD Adult 18-49 rating (+100%) and matched the prior week's L+7 lift as the show's biggest-ever. Forever grew to a 2.0 Adult 18-49 rating in L+7 (from a 1.0 in L+SD). In addition, S.H.I.E.L.D. shot up +81% over its first-reported L+SD rating to equal its 2nd-largest ever playback increase among young adults. S.H.I.E.L.D. finished with a 2.9 L+7 rating in Adults 18-49 (up from a 1.6 in L+SD).

Castle (3.0 rating - tie), Dancing with the Stars (2.7), Modern Family (6.0 - tie), Nashville (2.5 - tie) and Shark Tank (2.7 - tie) all delivered season-high L+7 ratings among Adults 18-49 during the week.

In the final Live + 7 Day ratings, ABC aired 3 of the week's Top 5 broadcast programs among Adults 18-49: Modern Family (6.0 rating) - #3, How to Get Away with Murder (5.1) - #4 and Scandal (4.7) - #5.

· Growing to a 6.0 L+7 rating in Adults 18-49, ABC's Modern Family nearly caught The Big Bang Theory (6.3 rating), with just 3-tenths of a rating point separating the two programs - Modern's closest finish yet this season with the CBS comedy.

· ABC's Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. grew to a 2.9 rating among Adults 18-49 in L7 to nearly tie CBS' NCIS: New Orleans (3.0 rating) in the Tuesday 9pm hour. In the L+SD ratings, S.H.I.E.L.D. trailed the new CBS drama by 7-tenths of a rating point among young adults.

Season-to-Date TV Playback (9/22/14-11/23/14):

Based on L+7 ratings through 9 weeks of the 2014-15 season, ABC is #1 in Nielsen's non-sports Adult 18-49 averages (2.9 rating), leading CBS (+16% - 2.5), NBC (+21% - 2.4) and Fox (+45% - 2.0) by solid double-digit margins. ABC grows by +0.9 rating points over its Live + Same Day Adult 18-49 rating (2.0 rating in L+SD to a 2.9 in L+7) in the non-sports averages, making the Net the #1 biggest actual gainer in TV playback this season. Growing to a 2.9 L+7 rating among Adults 18-49 in the non-sports numbers, ABC is the only net up year to year (2.8 for 9/23/13-11/24/13), as CBS (-11%), NBC (-11%) and Fox (-17%) are each declining.

Based on TV playback data for the 2014-15 season, ABC's How to Get Away with Murder (+2.2 rating points) and Modern Family (+2.2) share the #2 spot among broadcast gainers in Adults 18-49.

ABC's HTGAWM is the season's biggest gainer for any freshman series among Adults 18-49 (+2.2 rating points), topping the L+7 gain of Fox's Gotham (+1.8). In fact, the L+7 lift for HTGAWM is outdelivering the lift of last season's top freshman gainer through the same point last season, NBC's The Blacklist (+2.1).

HTGAWM is the season's #1 broadcast drama and #1 new TV show in the young adult demo (5.2 rating).

Among Adults 18-49 in the L+7 ratings, ABC has the #1 show on Wednesday with Modern Family (5.7 rating), the Top 3 dramas on Thursday with HTGAWM (5.2), Scandal (4.8) and Grey's Anatomy (4.0) and the #1 show on Friday with Shark Tank (2.6).

Several ABC's returning series are seeing bigger percentage gains among Adults 18-49 from L+SD to L+7 this year than last: Castle (+61% vs. +57%), Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (+76% vs. +66%), The Middle (+35% vs. +22%), Modern Family (+63% vs. +49%), Revenge (+69% vs. +59%), Scandal (+50% vs. +48%) and Shark Tank (37% vs. 32%).

Source: The Nielsen Company, as dated. Based on regular, original telecasts only. Season-to-Date DVR playback ranker includes programs with 2 or more telecasts.