Thursday night’s series finale of “ER” on NBC drew over 16 million viewers.
The two-hour finale averaged a 6.0 rating/16 share among adults 18-49 and 16.4 million viewers, according to final Nielsen Media Research figures. The show dominated the 9-11 p.m. hours across the broadcast networks.
Last night’s episode drew the biggest 18-49 rating for a drama finale on the broadcast networks since Fox’s “The X-Files” wrapped up with a 6.3 in May 2002. “ER” also had the largest audience for a drama finale since CBS’ “Murder She Wrote” ended with 16.5 million viewers in May 1996.
NBC also logged its best 18-49 rating and total viewership for entertainment programming during the time period since the “Will & Grace” finale night in May 2006.
The medical drama scored its best rating in the demo since October 2006 and the largest audience since May 2006. Compared with the season-to-date average for its final year (3.2 rating), last night’s “ER” was up 88%.
At 8 p.m., NBC aired a retrospective special, which scored a 3.5/10 in the demo and 10.6 million viewers.
“ER” ended its run after 15 seasosn and 123 Emmy Award nominations.
(Editor: Baumann. Updated throughout at 9:25 a.m. Final Nielsen figures at 3 p.m.)