‘Empire’ Ratings Soar For Ninth Straight Week Ahead Of Season Finale


A lot went down on Empire last night, but the most exciting thing to note is the show’s unprecedented ratings. For the ninth week straight Empire’s ratings continued to rise. The fact that their ratings rise every week is not only historical, but it’s a huge deal in this day and age of DVR and binge watching.

Just when you thought it wasn’t possible, the Fox freshman series gained even more viewers during last night’s episode. The series was up 400,000 viewers from the previous week which gave the episode a 5.6 rating. So what does this mean in numbers?

It means that 14.7 million people watched last night’s Empire. That’s five million people more than its premiere, which was still an impressive feat at 9.9 million viewers, especially for a mid-season replacement show.

The show is expected to rise in viewers once again, especially considering next week is their two-hour season finale.

As far as what’s in store for the season finale, musical guests include Patti LaBelle, Rita Ora, Juicy J and Snoop Dogg. So far we know that Cookie and Anika will throw down, and Jamal’s new love interest, Ryan, will also return. It also looks like Lucious’ rival, Billy Beretti (Judd Nelson), is also back in the picture to cause some extra trouble for Lucious, as if he doesn’t have enough on his hands.

With Naomi Campbell out of the picture, it looks like we will see Tiana (Serayah) as Hakeem’s love interest, but we don’t know for how long she’s sticking around.

Producer Danny Strong said, “It’s a very explosive finale, not surprising. Many things go down and many things get resolved. Alliances will shift and yet it may or may not be completely resolved by the tine its over. A lot will be resolved, we’re not going to Laura Palmer the finale.”

That said, he wasn’t sure what the plan was in terms of broadening Empire’s episode order for next year. “I don’t know what we’re doing yet, it hasn’t been decided but I don’t think 22 is the discussion.”

As the Inquisitr reported producer Ilene Chaiken said that she’s confident they will expand past their current episode order into next year.

“I’m confident that they’re not going to ask us to do more than we can do well. And if we can do a full season well and if we come up with a plan for how to do it, then we will. And if we do fewer, it’s because we think that’s exactly the right number to keep making Empire great.”

[Image via Fox]

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