Dancing with the Stars has had quite a season.
The ABC series, based on BBC format Strictly Come Dancing, scored its largest finale audience in nine years – since Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez and Valentin Chmerkovskiy won in 2016.
The finale, which saw Robert Irwin and Witney Carson take home the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy, recorded 9.24 million total viewers and a 2.15 rating among adults 18-49. This was its highest finale number in the demo since 2015 when Nyle DiMarco and Peta Murgatroyd were winners.
The ratings are well up on last season’s finale, which had 6.37M viewers, while in 18-49s it was up 89% with last season scoring a 1.14 rating. It was, in fact, the strongest demo number for the show since Irwin’s sister Bindi and Derek Hough won in 2015.
Watch on Deadline
RELATED: ‘Dancing With The Stars’ Season 34 Finale: Performance, Audience, Show & Winner Photos
The Disney-owned network also got a bit salty, taking shots at rivals CBS and NBC over the numbers. “Last night’s telecast delivered more Adult 18-49 viewing in one night than the entirety of CBS’s primetime entertainment schedule last week and more than double the combined primetime entertainment programming on NBC during that period,” it noted in its ratings release.
ABC also scored its best audience among adults 18-34 since 2011. This was a 53% share in this demo, the largest share of available viewers for any broadcast entertainment series telecast since the Friends series finale in May 2004.
RELATED: ‘Dancing With The Stars’ Winners By Season – Photo Gallery
It’s not a huge surprise given that the BBC Studios-produced show has been performing well all season. In October, ratings rose for the second straight week since its season premiere – the first time that happened in 20 years — and it hit a massive high with its recent Wicked-themed episode.
Fans also got into the spirit with more than 72M votes cast during the finale, a 31% increase over the semifinals high, which saw 55M votes cast, and more than a 125% rise from last season’s finale, which received 32M votes. Across the season, nearly half a billion votes were cast.