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\n\tThe biggest Dancing With the Stars<\/a> season in years ended, fittingly, with the show\u2019s most watched finale in nearly a decade. CBS\u2019 reunion special for Everybody Loves Raymond<\/a> also scored well. <\/p>\n \n\tTuesday\u2019s season 34 finale<\/a> of Dancing With the Stars delivered 9.24 million viewers, based on preliminary Nielsen ratings (which don\u2019t include the company\u2019s big data component). That\u2019s a season high \u2014\u00a0easily topping the 7.22 million viewers for the previous week \u2014\u00a0and the largest same-day audience for a DWTS finale since November 2016, when 10.97 million people watched the final episode.<\/p>\n \n\tIn the key ad demographic of adults 18-49, Tuesday\u2019s finale scored a 2.15 rating, almost doubling the 1.14 for last season\u2019s finale. It\u2019s the best showing in the demo for a DWTS finale since 2015.<\/p>\n \n\tFinal same-day ratings, which will likely include some adjustments with the addition of Nielsen\u2019s big data element, will be released in a few days.<\/p>\n \n\tSeason 34 as a whole averaged a little under 6.5 million same-day viewers, the highest total since season 28 in 2019. Among adults 18-49, this season\u2019s 1.34 rating is the best since a 1.37 for the fall 2017 edition of DWTS. Including a week of streaming and other delayed viewing, Dancing With the Stars is averaging about 8.6 million viewers (through Nov. 9, before the season\u2019s two biggest episodes aired).<\/p>\n \n\tDancing With the Stars is also the first network entertainment series \u2014 i.e., not sports or news \u2014 since the 2020-21 season to score a 1.0 rating (equivalent to about 1.36 million people ages 18-49) or better without the aid of delayed viewing or streaming.<\/p>\n \n\tThe show\u2019s resurgence this season wasn\u2019t just reflected in TV ratings<\/a>, which grew by about 33 percent among all viewers and by a huge 82 percent in adults 18-49. Audience voting also hit all-time highs, with 72 million cast during the finale and almost 500 million over the course of the season. Social media interaction related to the series has spiked as well. Showrunner Conrad Green cited the latter as a major factor fueling this season\u2019s growth, and casting director Deena Katz has leaned into having influencers and other social media celebrities on the show.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve forever tried to figure out for such a long time, as long as social media has been around, that how putting somebody [like an influencer] on a show wouldn\u2019t bring their audience over. It was so frustrating: Why do they have this many followers, but it doesn\u2019t turn into viewers on TV?\u201d Katz told The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>. \u201cWhat has happened is the TikTok world has opened something up that I\u2019ve never seen before, where we are\u00a0so\u00a0involved in the TikTok story every single week that there\u2019s a whole new audience that needed to start watching our show to keep up with what was going on in social media.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n