“Dancing with the Stars” broke its own record week after week during Season 34, and that continued until the final night. The three-hour episode on November 26, which ended with Robert Irwin and Whitney Carson taking home Len Goodman’s Mirrorball Trophy, garnered 9.24 million total viewers and a 2.15 rating in adults 18-49.
Among adults 18-49, the show nearly doubled last season’s finale (2.15 vs. 1.14 rating), marking its best finale performance in a decade since Robert’s sister Bindi Irwin won the mirror ball with partner Derek Hough in November 2015.
The episode was the most-watched finale in nine years (the Season 23 finale won by Laurie Hernandez and Val Chmerkovskiy), and total viewers were up double digits from last year’s finale.
According to ABC, the finale was the highest entertainment telecast in both total viewers and adults 18-49 since ABC aired the Oscars earlier this year. It had a 53% audience share in the demo. This was the largest share of available viewers for any broadcast entertainment series to air on television since the 2004 series finale, “Friends.”
During the show, hosts Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough announced that the show had received 72 million votes, more than double last year’s finale (32 million), and 31% higher than the show’s previous record in the semi-finals. Approximately 500 million votes were cast throughout the season.
The show also continued to grow on social media, with 6.9 million total social interactions, a 109% increase compared to this season’s average and a 67% increase compared to the show’s previous season finale.
In this episode, Alix Earle and Val Chmerkovskiy, Robert Irwin and Witney Carson, Dylan Efron and Daniela Karagacci, Elaine Hendricks and Alan Bersten, and Jordan Childs and Ezra Sosa battle it out for Len Goodman’s Mirrorball Trophy. Each couple performed three different dances: a judge’s choice dance, an insta dance (style and song decided five minutes in advance), and a freestyle.
Robert Irwin, who has been at the top of the leaderboard for most of the season, won the mirror ball.
