Disney's New 'Freeform' Network Starts Off Solid This Week

Walt Disney Co DIS ABC Family’s transition to Freeform officially began Tuesday night with the winter premiere of “Pretty Little Liars” and debut of “Shadowhunters.” The move was widely watched as many investors were curious about potential negative audience reaction to the new name, but so far so good.

The real analysis will come following the +3 numbers released later in the week but based on the overnights it wasn’t a bad start. Cult sensation “Pretty Little Liars” was the ideal choice to lead off the Freeform regime and it earned a 1.06 rating in the 18-49 demo which is up from the show’s midseason premiere last year (0.95). “Liars” also picked up more viewers as the show leaped year to year to 2.25 million viewers from 2.01 million.

As expected, the show also dominated on social media. Fueled by the Freeform name change, “Liars” was the top TV series across social sites Facebook (535,674 engagements), Instagram (4.2 million engagements) and Twitter (1.1 million engagements).

Freeform used “Liars” to help launch new teen drama “Shadowhunters” which retained over 70% of its lead-in. The series pulled a 0.76 in the demo and was sampled by 1.82 million viewers. Those numbers made “Shadowhunters” one of the higher-rated shows to follow “Liars,” as previous attempts with “Stichers” and “Twisted” yielded less viewers.

As it stands “Shadowhunters” is also the highest rated freshman show for the network in the last two years. The interesting part is that in the 18-34 demo, which is of more importance to Freeform, “Shadowhunters” only held 55% of the lead-in. The twist is that among those included in the group was actually a older male audience.

The main takeaway though is that the buzz around the new premieres and the complete lack of competition because of the State of the Union address helped Freeform have a strong first night. With “Liars” being the top program on cable in the demo and

“Shadowhunters” seeing high(ish) turnout, investors can rest a little easier for the moment.