Empire Continues to Reign, Drawing 16.2 Million Viewers for Its Season 2 Premiere

An impressive 16.2 million viewers watched the Fox drama's Season 2 premiere Wednesday night. The show had a 6.7 rating among adults ages 18 to 49, two full points higher than any other scripted series during this week's premieres.

The numbers were down just slightly from Empire's massive Season 1 finale ratings—17.6 million, 6.9 in the 18-49 demographic. In January, the show premiered with a 3.8 and 9.9 million viewers, and those numbers climbed almost every week until the premiere (total viewers rose every week, and its 18-49 rating went up every week but one). Fox says the season finale was the most tweeted one-hour broadcast series ever, with 1.3 million live tweets.

Minority Report, based on the 2002 Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise film, opened to a 1.1 rating in the demo (with 3.1 million total viewers), and Scream Queens had just a 1.7 rating and 4 million viewers despite Fox's seven-month marketing campaign. 

Since Empire's first season ended in March, Fox had embarked on an ambitious campaign to retain its Season 1 audience while also bringing in new viewers. Buyers have been more excited about Empire than any of the new fall shows. 

Empire's numbers in the 18-49 demo are bigger than any other scripted series debut this week. The Big Bang Theory opened to a 4.7 rating on Monday (the CBS sitcom had more total viewers with 18.2 million). But Sunday Night Football remains tops in both the demo (9.7) and total viewers (26.4 million).