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This Is Us Pulls Off Rare Ratings Feat With Controversial Season Finale
You'd think this show was a hit
Finally!
Days after a power outage in Florida caused a delay in getting performance data from Nielsen, the live+same day ratings for This Is Us' finale Tuesday have arrived. And though many fans felt disappointed and punked that they didn't get answers about Jack's (Milo Ventimiglia) death, NBC and 20th Century FOX studios have reason to celebrate: the finale represented a series high in viewership.
This Is Us' Chris Sullivan clears up the mystery of Toby's job
"Moonshadow," pulled in a 3.3 rating in the key demo of adults 18-49 and 12.7 million viewers. That's better than The Walking Dead-- the No. 1 rated cable show -- in total viewers; AMC's zombie fighting juggernaut only pulled in 10.6 million viewers for Sunday's episode. This Is Us is also the first broadcast series since Empire to grow its audience from its start to end period.
What do these numbers mean? A lot. For starters, This Is Us, which got a rare two-season renewal in January, renews faith that broadcast TV can create hits. To boot, we can expect networks to keep investing in family dramas as This Is Us continues to pick up steam. The bar is also now higher for its return in the fall. Can the Pearson family continue making ratings climb when it returns for Season 2? Time will tell.