The Bachelor pulled in the highest viewing figures and ratings it had seen all season during last night’s finale — in a huge turnaround for the ABC show.
More than 7.84 million people tuned in to watch according to provisional figures, with a 2.2/8 rating/share in the 18-49 demographic — the group most important to advertisers.
That means 2.2 per cent of all television viewers aged 18-49 watched the episode, and 8 per cent of all people in that demographic who were watching TV at the time were tuning in to The Bachelor.
It comes after Season 22 debuted back on January 1 with just 5.45 million viewers tuning in, the lowest number for any The Bachelor premiere. That was down by more than a million viewers on the premiere in 2017, which pulled in 6.62million.
Season 22 began to gain traction in Episode 3 when viewing figures hit 6.61million, and then remained mostly above the 6 million mark for the rest of the season. More importantly for the network, the number of people tuning in that are aged between 18-49 has remained strong.
Why did The Bachelor finale do well in the ratings?
Season finales generally always draw in more viewers than other episodes simply due to their nature. But there was particular excitement around this year’s episode due to rumors leading up to it that there was going to be a big twist — which proved to be true (SPOILERS).
The Bachelor was the top trending entertainment topic on Google over the past 24 hours — indicating a large amount of interest, which transferred into high viewing figures.
A second part of The Bachelor’s ‘After the Final Rose’ episode airs tonight at 8/7c on ABC.