‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ and ‘Dads’ look promising in early ratings

Fox got a jump on the fall season Tuesday night with two new comedies, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and the critically drubbed “Dads,” both of which showed some ratings promise.

“Dads,” a domestic sitcom from “Family Guy” overseer Seth MacFarlane, averaged 5.6 million total viewers, according to early results from Nielsen. That was a 44% jump compared with what “Raising Hope” drew for Fox in the time period last year. And “Dads” easily won the 8 p.m. time slot among 18-to-49-year-old viewers (a 2.1 rating), despite having no lead-in to help it along.

At 8:30, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” a cop spoof starring Andy Samberg, performed even better, with 6 million total viewers and a 2.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

FULL COVERAGE: Fall TV preview 2013

Of course, Fox needs to hold off any celebrations just yet. Both these new shows faced anemic competition. CBS was running a repeat of “NCIS” and NBC is committed to its flop game show “Million Second Quiz.” We’ll have to wait until the official arrival of the fall TV season next week to get a better read on how Fox is doing with the new Tuesday lineup.

There’s also some cause for concern on the Fox lot. Executives have pinned hopes on the 9:30 “The Mindy Project,” but the sophomore comedy starring Mindy Kaling lost more than one-fifth of its young-adult audience compared with last year’s premiere (1.9 rating).

“New Girl,” starring Zooey Deschanel, was up slightly compared with last year, with 5.7 million total viewers and a 2.9 rating in 18 to 49.

What do you think of the new Fox shows?

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