It turns out Teen Nick wasn’t lying when it claimed The 90s Are All That: Ratings are in for Monday night’s first broadcast of the cabler’s new late-night block of late-century Nick sitcoms (All That, Clarissa Explains It All, etc.), and Vulture is officially declaring them incredibly impressive. Among viewers 18–34, the demo Teen Nick is targeting in late-night, The 90s attracted ratings roughly 850 percent higher than the channel’s previous time-period average in the midnight-to-2 a.m. block. Case in point: Last week, a repeat of Malcolm in the Middle on Teen Nick drew just 33,000 folks under 34. But Monday night, an episode of All That brought in 265,000 nostalgists. Likewise, an Undeclared rerun brought a mere 3,000 viewers 18–34 when it aired at 1 a.m. a few weeks back; Clarissa attracted 189,000 folks in the same demo, around 60 times as many viewers. But the nineties block didn’t just improve upon Teen Nick’s averages — it also crushed some impressive competition on other networks.
According to Nielsen, the midnight-to-1 a.m. combo of All That and Kenan and Kel drew roughly 600,000 viewers (of all ages) Monday, compared to the 374,000 viewers who caught Lopez Tonight on TBS in the same hour. It also bettered the 559,000 viewers who caught an Awkward rerun on MTV at midnight, as well as the roughly 500,000 people who checked out reruns of The New Adventures of Old Christine and HIMYM on Lifetime. Considering Teen Nick doesn’t have anywhere near the profile of those other networks, its after-midnight performance can only be called extraordinary. If this keeps up, don’t be shocked if The 90s Are All That spreads to prime time on one of the Nickelodeon channels.