TV Ratings: ‘This Is Us’ Finale Matches Season High 7.9 Million Viewers

By Will Thorne

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The dramatic season 4 finale of “This Is Us” delivered plenty of surprises as well as strong ratings numbers for NBC.

Tuesday night’s episode scored a 1.7 rating among adults 18-49, its highest mark since Oct. 2019, and 7.9 million total viewers, matching the premiere for a season high. That represents a 21% ratings bump from the penultimate episode, and only a 4% drop from the season 3 finale. Earlier in the night, “Ellen’s Game of Games” shot up to a season high 1.4 rating and 6.3 million viewers, beating the previous watermark by an impressive 700,000 total viewers. NBC premiered its new series “Council of Dads” after “” to a 0.7 rating and around 4 million total viewers.

Meanwhile on CBS, an “” crossover with its “Most Wanted” spinoff yielded a 1.1 average rating and around 10 million total viewers, an excellent season high return as far as both series are concerned. The crossover was undoubtedly helped by a strong “NCIS” lead-in, which scored a 1.3 rating and a massive 13.1 million viewers, easily a season high in terms of audience.

Over on ABC, “The Conners” struggled a little bit to keep up with the stiff competition, ticking down to a 1.1 rating and 6.4 million viewers. The rest of the Disney-owned network’s lineup was even week-to-week, with “Bless This Mess” coming in at a 0.7 and 4.1 million viewers, followed by “Mixed-ish” and “Black-ish” both at a 0.6. “For Life” rounded off the night also at a 0.6.

“Empire” drew its largest audience since October of last year on Fox, scoring 2.8 million pairs of eyeballs and a 0.7 rating. “The Resident” was even at a 0.8 and 4.4 million viewers.

CW aired an episode of “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow” to a 0.1 rating and 413,000 viewers, as well as a “Flash” replay to the same rating.