Union Square is a new half-hour television comedy on NBC on Thursday night at 8:30. It premiered on September 25, 1997 along with other NBC shows for that evening, and it did well in its time slot, as did the entire NBC lineup for that evening. Critical opinion and attitudes expressed by industry analysts before the show went on the air, however, expressed the view that Union Square was not really ready for broadcast when it went on and that it was in many ways a "work-in-progress." Yet, the network put it on the air just the same, and commentators have stated that one reason for this is that NBC owns the show and is willing to take more chances for a show it owns.
The night of the premier, NBC benefited not only from its usual slate of programs that evening but from anticipation over the special ER episode to be broadcast live at 10 pm. The episode of ER drew 42.7 million viewers, a 22 percent increase over last year's first episode, which was double the combined audience for its network competition--ABC's 20/20 and CBS's 48 Hours (Lowry 2). New shows like Union Square and Veronica's closet benefited from this stunt because the audience grew larger as the night progressed. Union Square benefited less, of course, because it was on early in the evening, but it did sit between two well-established hits, Friends and Seinfeld. The audience during the evening got larger, meaning that those watching at the beginning tended to stay as other people joined them. The ratings were effective for them first episode, but the important numbers came in the second week, showing that the program brought back its audience. NBC then had the five highest rated programs for the week, one of which was Union Square in fifth place with a rating of 14.5 and a 23 share ("The Top 20 Prime Time TV Programs: Sept. 29 Oct. 5" Reuters New Media). However, Union Square did not do as well in its third week and slipped from retaining 88 percent of its p...