‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ Hits a Season High in Total Viewers, Tops ‘The Young and the Restless’ in Women 18-49 Rating

“The Bold and the Beautiful” was the standout performer for the week among all daytime broadcast shows during the week of April 4-8, 2022 in Total Viewers, Women 18-49 and Women 25-54. Not only was the soap the only daytime broadcast series to gain viewers week to week, up +219,000 viewers, it also tied its second-best week of the season in Women 18-49 with a 0.37 rating to rank third in the demo, topping fourth place “TODAY 3rd Hour” (0.36 rating) and fifth place “The Young and the Restless (0.35 rating).

Among soaps, records show this is the first time this season “B&B” has beaten perennial demo leader “Y&R” in Women 18-49 rating. In fact, the last time “B&B” beat “Y&R” in the Women 18-49 demographic was during the week of March 16-20, 2020, not including ties or rounding.

Averaging 3.179 million viewers for the week, “B&B” hit a season high in Total Viewers and attracted its largest overall audience since the week of April 20-24, 2020, the final week of originals aired pre-pandemic. Compared to the same week in 2020 (week of April 6-10, 2020), the soap was down -4,000 viewers, the smallest drop of any daytime broadcast series among Total Viewers compared to their 2020 performance. 

In Women 18-49, “B&B” was up over the comparable week last year (0.37 vs 0.36) and week to week (0.37 vs 0.36). In Women 25-54, the series ranked fourth for the week with a 0.57 rating, flat with its week ago performance and down -0.06 compared to the same week last year.

“B&B’s” overall performance is more impressive when you consider the soap was preempted on the West Coast on Tuesday, April 5 and Wednesday, April 6 due to CBS Sports coverage of “UEFA Champions League” games. Additionally, this is the second week in a row the soap has gained more than 200,000 viewers over the week prior.

The Thursday, April 7 episode was the soap’s highest-rated single episode for the week, averaging a 0.45 rating in Women 18-49 and a 0.69 rating in Women 25-54 despite only airing 27 minutes of show before CBS News broke in with coverage of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson being confirmed as the first Black woman Supreme Court justice.