What television shows had the lowest ratings ever?

Answer 1

Due to the sheer amount of TV shows aired since Nielsen numbers were recorded & due to the fact that networks don't really save the numbers of shows that failed, this information is not easy to come by, also it depends on the criteria you're referring to. Prime Time, first run episodes, American TV shows etc etc?

Reruns naturally get lower ratings then first run episodes, but if we narrow it down to Prime Time American shows, the 2013 premiere of NBC's Do No Harm received a 0.9 demo score w/ 3.1 million viewers. It is apparently the lowest rated Drama premiere (as of August 2013).

Also NBC's 2012 Bent apparently has the lowest rated comedy premiere at 9:30 w/ a 0.9 demo score w/ 2.42 million viewers.

However it's possible one of the lowest shows, was CNBC's The John McEnroe Show. It averaged only 176,000 viewers its premiere week.

-----

Since the above answer was written a new champion came forward.

The 2013-2014 season ABC's Lucky 7 was cancelled after 2 episodes due to the fact it received a 0.7 in the 18/49 demo w/ its second episode which was down from its debut episode which only received a 0.8 in the demo & 2.8 million viewers.