CE discussing TV ratings actually hurts my head. The vast, vast, vast majority of broadcast season premiers are down from the premier the season before. Largely because broadcast TV as a whole decreases in viewership year-over-year. Your better comparison is season finales to the subsequent premier. Because that is much better judge of how much you audience you shed over the offseason.
In that regards,The Conners did great. A single tenth of a point drop over the offseason after a very public and messy split with the former title character is actually sort of amazing. They basically retained the entire audience who was still watching at the end of the last season. Furthermore their ratings are overall fantastic for broadcast TV period.
And before people get semantic about this being a new series and thus we need to compare premiers to premiers. This is a show with predominately the same casts, setting, writers, producers, timeslot, and intended audience. You gotta look at its substance in form over fact. It might technically be a new show, but it is effectively a season 2 of the reboot (or season 11 overall).
Now what remains to be seen is how much of this audience will stick around after the premier. This audience could be a flash in the pan, "lets see how Roseanne dies" kind of deal, and the show could tank. But if it can stabalize at even 1.5, this will still be a outright success for ABC.
Thats how I feel, like I watched for Roseanne but Ill still watch for Dan. Its stupid to boycott something because of what happened.. ---