“Dancing With the Stars” broke their own records week after week during Season 34 — and that only continued on finale night. The Nov. 26 three-hour episode, which ended with Robert Irwin and Witney Carson taking home the Len Goodman Mirrorball trophy, earned 9.24 million total viewers and a 2.15 rating with adults 18-49.
Among adults 18-49, the show nearly doubled last season’s finale (2.15 rating vs. 1.14), becoming its strongest finale result in 10 years, since Bindi Irwin — Robert’s older sister — took home the Mirrorball in November 2015 with partner Derek Hough.
The episode became the most-watched finale in nine years (the Season 23 finale, which saw Laurie Hernandez and Val Chmerkovskiy win) in total viewers and rose in double digits from last year’s finale.
Per ABC, the finale is the top entertainment telecast since ABC aired the Oscars earlier this year, both in total viewers and adults 18-49. It captured a 53% audience share in the demo — the largest share of available viewers for any broadcast entertainment series telecast since the 2004 series finale of “Friends.”
During the episode, hosts Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough announced that they received 72 million votes, more than doubling last year’s finale (32 million) and marking a 31% increase over the show’s previous high during semifinals. Nearly half a billion votes were cast throughout the season.
The show also continued to grow on social media with 6.9 million total social interactions, growing 109% over the current season average and 67% over the show’s previous season finale.
The episode saw Alix Earle and Val Chmerkovskiy, Robert Irwin and Witney Carson, Dylan Efron and Daniella Karagach, Elaine Hendrix and Alan Bersten, and Jordan Chiles and Ezra Sosa battle it out for the Len Goodman mirrorball trophy. Each couple performed three different dances — a judges’ pick, an insta dance (which they found out the style and song five minutes before) and a freestyle.
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Robert Irwin, who has landed at the top of the leaderboard for most of the season, took home with mirrorball.
From Variety US