Ratings Watch: Empire Ends Strong, Dancing With the Stars Improves Vs. Fall

Michael Schneider March 28, 2015, 5:05 pm

Comments

Fox’s Empire was such a phenomenon, the show’s finale is still breaking records as time-shifted DVR and video on-demand ratings come in. After three days of DVR/VOD viewership, the final hour of Empire added 4.3 million more viewers.

And in Adults 18-49, the show’s Season 1 finale averaged an 8.8 rating and 27 share. That’s the highest-rated freshman series ender since Grey’s Anatomy drew a 9.8 rating on May 22, 2005.

Meanwhile, the premiere of Dancing with the Stars‘ 20th season was up from its fall bow (15.4 million in Live+3 on Sept. 15) but down from a year ago (16.6 million in Live+3 on March 17, 2014).

The ABC News special 20/20: Untold Story of The Sound of Music was 20/20′s most-watched episode of the season, and gave ABC its highest viewership in the Friday 10/9c timeslot since New Year’s Eve.

Here is the top 25 total viewer ranker, including Live+3, for the week ending March 22, 2015.

RANK	SHOW & NETWORK	LIVE+3 DAYS DVR/VOD	WATCHED LIVE/ SAME DAY
1	Empire (9pm) Fox	21.9	17.6
2	Empire (8pm) Fox	20.2	15.8
3	The Walking Dead AMC	18.2	13.8
4	Dancing with the Stars ABC	15.7	14.2
5	The Voice (Tuesday) NBC	14.8	12.8
6	The Voice (Monday) NBC	14.4	12.6
7	The Blacklist NBC	13.1	8.6
8	Madame Secretary CBS	12.7	10.8
9	60 Minutes CBS Castle ABC	12 12	11.6 8.9
11	Survivor CBS	11.4	9.6
12	Scandal ABC	11.2	7.8
13	CSI: Cyber CBS	10.5	8
14	NCIS CBS	10.4	10
15	Grey’s Anatomy ABC	10.3	7.7
16	The Good Wife CBS	10.1	8.4
17	American Idol (Thursday) Fox Mike & Molly CBS NCIS: New Orleans CBS	9.9 9.9 9.9	8.5 8.6 9.5
20	Chicago Fire NBC	9.7	7
21	Shark Tank ABC The Big Bang Theory CBS	8.9 8.9	7.5 8.4
23	20/20: Untold Story of The Sound of Music ABC	8.6	7.3
24	Last Man Standing ABC	8.4	7
25	Once Upon A Time ABC Dateline Friday NBC	7.7 7.7	5.8 6.8