Putting to rest any remaining doubts that CBS's The Amazing Race has become a bonfide hit, last night's finale of the show's seventh edition crossed the finish line in amazing fashion, delivering the long-running reality series' best ever ratings performance among overall viewers, households, and all three of the key Adults 18-49, Adults 25-54, and Adults 18-34 demographics.
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Airing from 9-11PM ET/PT, The Amazing Race 7's Tuesday, May 10 finale broadcast averaged 16.01 million overall viewers, a 9.6/15 rating/share in households, a 6.8/17 rating/share in Adults 18-49, a 7.7/17 rating/share in Adults 25-54, and a 6.0/16 rating/share among Adults 18-34. In addition to ranking as best ratings performance of any episode in The Amazing Race's previous seven seasons, the figures also led the two-hour time period in all five measurements.
Dominating the two-hour time block among the three key demographics, The Amazing Race 7 finale outperformed NBC and ABC's combined performance in the period (6.8/17 vs. 6.3/15 in Adults 18-49, 7.7/17 vs. 7.6/17 in Adults 25-54, and 6.0/16 vs. 5.0/14 in Adults 18-34).
The Amazing Race 7 finale also lifted CBS to Tuesday night ratings highs that it had not seen in some time, delivering the network's best performance in households and viewers since last fall's Country Music Awards telecast and its best Adults 18-49, Adults 25-54, and Adults 18-34 figures since the network's November 13, 2001 broadcast of Michael Jackson's 30th Anniversary Special.
The Amazing Race 7 also concluded its run with the best averages of any edition of the reality franchise, averaging 13.03 million viewers, a 8.0/12 rating/share in households, a 5.3/13 rating/share in Adults 18-49, a 6.1/14 rating/share in Adults 25-54, and a 4.6/13 rating/share among Adults 18-34 during its season.