Dancing with the Stars: A Comeback Story

Dancing with the Stars is back and better than ever. The show, inspired by the British series Strictly Come Dancing, just had its most-watched finale since 2016. Robert Irwin and Witney Carson won the competition, but the real victory was the show's ratings. The finale drew in 9. 24 million viewers, which is a big deal. It's the highest number of viewers since 2016 when Laurie Hernandez and Valentin Chmerkovskiy won. The show also got a 2. 15 rating among adults aged 18-49, which is the best it's done since 2015. This is a huge jump from last season's finale. Last year, only 6. 37 million people tuned in, and the rating was much lower. This year's finale had 89% more viewers in the 18-49 age group than last year's finale. ABC, the network that airs the show, couldn't resist bragging about these numbers. They said that the finale had more viewers in the 18-49 age group than CBS's entire primetime schedule last week. It also had more than double the viewers of NBC's primetime schedule during the same period. The show has been doing well all season. In October, ratings went up for the second week in a row, which hasn't happened in 20 years. The Wicked-themed episode was especially popular. Fans were also very engaged. More than 72 million votes were cast during the finale, which is a 31% increase from the semifinals. This is also a 125% increase from last season's finale. Across the whole season, nearly half a billion votes were cast.