As anyone with a pulse should have expected, NBC’s The Wiz Live! was a huge hit. According to Nielsen, 11M viewers watched the live cast and it also was a massive hit on Twitter, too. Reports Variety: Two years after NBC stunned the industry with boffo ratings for its live presentation of “The Sound of Music,” the network was back at it Thursday night with “The Wiz Live,” which drew impressive numbers of its own. The event also set a Nielsen Twitter record as most social live special program in the more than four years of tracking such numbers — generating more reactions than NBC’s two prior musicals combined. Despite facing a highly rated NFL game on CBS, last night’s live musical, whose all-star cast included Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige and David Alan Grier, averaged a 3.4 rating/11 share in adults 18-49 and about 11.5 million viewers overall from 8 to 10:45 p.m., according to preliminary Nielsen estimates. The only NBC entertainment series to fare better this fall is “The Voice,” whose season premiere averaged a 3.5/11 in 18-49 and 12.37 million. Black Twitter and Twitter in general was lit with commentary during the broadcast. It was mostly all about the Black excellence being put on display on the television screen thanks to standout performances from Queen Latifah, Amber Riley, Ne-Yo and Shanice Williams, the 19-year-old who portrayed “Dorothy.” Check out some of the best reactions below and on the following pages. — Photo: NBC
