Searching for – and finding – fall premieres on television

NEW YORK, N.Y. – The anticipation among television viewers about new fall shows was foreshadowed by Google.

The online information company said Friday the most-searched query about fall premieres over the past week was about when Fox’s “Empire” would return. The new season debuted to 16.2 million viewers on Wednesday night, the Nielsen company said.

The two top returning shows so far this week have been CBS’ “NCIS” and “The Big Bang Theory,” both with 18.2 million viewers, Nielsen said.

Both shows were also featured among the top 10 questions Google received on premieres, the company said. Google didn’t release numbers on how many people made these searches, but the company said there are roughly 3 billion Google searches on various topics made worldwide each day.

The second most searched-for premiere date on Google was for CBS’ “Criminal Minds,” which hasn’t debuted yet, with “The Big Bang Theory” being third, the company said.

NBC’s “Chicago Fire” has also attracted Google attention, along with CBS’ “Madam Secretary” and ABC’s “Scandal,” ”Grey’s Anatomy” and “Nashville.”

The “Empire” ratings were closely watched by the industry in general to see if the sensation created by last winter’s debut of the music industry soap would continue. This week’s viewership was second only to the season finale last spring, which had 17.6 million viewers. The show is also expected to gain when time-delayed viewing is factored in.

Google said that over the past month, the television programs that were most searched-for for any reason were ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” HBO’s Emmy-winning “Game of Thrones” and Comedy Central’s “South Park.”