‘Golden Bachelor’ Sparks With Streaming Viewers

The Golden Bachelor continues to capture viewers’ hearts.

After a solid on-air premiere and a strong showing over three days of delayed viewing and streaming, the ABC series’ momentum continued across additional days. After a week of multi-platform viewing, the Sept. 28 series premiere for The Golden Bachelor hit 9 million viewers, more than double its initial audience of 4.36 million, and almost quadrupled its rating among adults 18-49, going from 0.62 to 2.46.

As has been the case with the earlier ratings marks, The Golden Bachelor premiere hit multi-year highs for the Bachelor franchise. The episode drew the biggest total audience for the franchise since a February 2021 episode of The Bachelor and the best 18-49 rating since a September 2021 Bachelor in Paradise.

According to seven-day Nielsen ratings, the premiere grew by about 1.14 million viewers and 0.19 points in the 18-49 demographic via DVR playback, bringing its linear viewing totals to just under 5.5 million viewers and a 0.81 demo rating.

That means streaming on Hulu and ABC’s digital platforms accounted for 3.5 million viewers (39 percent of the cross-platform total) and 1.65 ratings points in adults 18-49 (about two-thirds of the 2.46). Those are figures more in line with the typical seven-day profile of a scripted series, which tend to draw more after-the-fact viewers than unscripted shows. ABC’s promotional push for The Golden Bachelor included frequent reminders of the show’s streaming availability, which might have helped boost the multi-platform numbers.

The network also noted that the premiere has 2.53 million views (as defined by total streaming time divided by episode run time) over seven days on Hulu, the most ever for any episode of an ABC unscripted show on the platform. That equates to about 108.8 million minutes of viewing for the 43-minute premiere, and is the most watched episode of any ABC series, scripted or unscripted, since a November 2021 installment of Grey’s Anatomy.