The Dancing with the Stars Season 33 finale lit up ABC with the show’s best audience in four years.
According to Nielsen, 6.36 million people tuned in to watch Joey Graziadei and Jenna Johnson take home the mirrorball trophy Tuesday night, which is the highest Live+Same Day total for Dancing with the Stars since the Season 29 finale in 2020.
Compared to last year, the Season 33 finale was up 16% in total viewers. It was also up nearly 25% from just last week, when about 5.1M watched the semifinals. At the time, that was the season’s best audience.
The finale episode was also up 70% year-over-year among adults 18-49. Speaking of the demo, the three-hour season ender drew an impressive 1.14 rating, which is the best its done in seven years.
Prior to the finale, Season 33 of Dancing with the Stars had been averaging a slightly lower same-day audience than Season 32. However, the show was also breaking fan voting records weekly, according to Disney, which indicates the audience was engaged.
Disney says the Season 33 finale broke the fan voting record once again with 32M votes for the five finalists, which is 12M more than the semifinals.
The fact that the audience skyrocketed for the finale also suggests that delayed viewing for the rest of the season was likely pretty strong. Disney hasn’t released much by way of delayed viewing, which would include Disney+ viewership.