‘Empire’ beats ‘Scandal’s’ live-tweet average, ratings up again

The Lyon family was on top of the TV ratings again, with “Empire” continuing its growth streak for the seventh week in a row.

Fox’s freshman series, which premiered on Jan. 7, was No. 1 on Wednesday night with 13.8-million viewers and a rating of 5.3 in the key 18-to-49-year-old demographic, according to Nielsen ratings.

Created by Academy Award nominee Lee Daniels and Emmy Award-winner Danny Strong, the show follows music tycoon Luscious Lyon (Terrence Howard). After being diagnosed with a terminal illness, Luscious has to decide how to divvy up his business among his three sons: Jamal (Jussie Smollett), Andre (Trai Byers) and Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray).

The show has climbed 39% in viewers since its premiere, more than any other new broadcast drama since “House” in 2004.

The show now also has the highest average number of tweets per episode during its live airings of any broadcast drama this season, according to Nielsen Social Guide and Twitter metrics. To date, “Empire” has averaged 381,770 tweets per episode, surpassing the roughly 355,012 tweet average for “Scandal.”

“Scandal” has been one of the most talked-about shows on social media, with fans — known as “Gladiators” — sending out more than 3 million tweets during the first half of the season. ABC used this fervor to market Rhimes’ other Thursday night programs under the “#TGIT” tagline.

Wednesday’s “Empire” episode garnered 181,188 “reaction” tweets, according to Canvs, a social TV platform created by social media insight firm Mashwork.

The company uses relevant tweets, provided by Nielsen, from three hours before, during and three hours after an episode’s initial broadcast, local time, to gauge what emotions people have about TV. The tweets are then broken down into “reactions,” or tweets containing any kind of emotion.

Roughly 32.4% of the “reaction” tweets contained emotions of love, the platform reported. People used hashtags with everything from “#EmpireFox” to “#TeamCookie.”

Also on Fox, “American Idol” ranked at No. 2 with a solid 10.2-million viewers overall. It was third in the key demo with a rating of 2.6.

The shows boosted the network to first with a rating of 4.0 in the key demo and roughly 12-million viewers.

On CBS, “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race” premieres helped the network come in second in overall viewers with 7.9 million overall. It was third in the key demo with a rating of 1.9.

The 30th season of “Survivor” kicked off to its biggest audience since fall of 2012, racking up about 9.9-million viewers. It posted a rating of 2.3 in the key demo, down 4% from last spring’s premiere.

“Amazing Race” was even with last February’s premiere, which aired on a Sunday night, with a rating of 1.5 in the key demo. It was 11th most watched overall with 6-million viewers.

Meanwhile, ABC took second in the key demo with a rating of 2.2.

“Modern Family” was the second-most-watched in the key demo with a rating of 3.4, up 10% from last week. It averaged 9.3-million viewers, making it fourth-most-watched overall.

“The Goldbergs” saw the most growth from last week, up 14% with a rating of 2.5 in the key demo. It pulled in 7.5-million viewers.

The network, which also aired episodes of “The Middle,” “Black-ish” and “Nashville,” was fourth most watched with 6.7-million viewers.

NBC was No. 3 with about 7.6-million viewers. Of the show’s Wednesday lineup, “Law & Order SVU” grabbed the most viewers. With 7.7-million people tuning in, the show was fifth most watched overall. “Mysteries of Laura” followed with 7.6-million viewers.

The network posted a rating of 1.5 in the key demo.

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