‘Empire’ Ratings Decline Ends, Mets-Cubs NLCS Game 4 Down

There was a fair amount of baptism on television last night with Empire (4.8/15) taking it to church and the New York Mets going to the World Series for the first time since 2000 after sweeping the National League Championship Series 4-0 against the Chicago Cubs.

Breaking a 3-week ratings decline and seeing its first uptick of its second season, the Lee Daniels and Danny Strong co-created Fox blockbuster was back last night with a 2% rise among adults 18-49 from the final numbers of its October 14 show. Impressive enough against the MLB Playoffs, which have chewed into Empire’s numbers the past few weeks, the series is up 4% fast nationals-to-fast nationals and could see an adjustment later today. Viewershipwise, Empire is even with last week’s 12.2 million.

The hip hop drama was certainly helped by the 8-3 score in the Mets vs. Cubs game and also by its lead-in Rosewood (1.5/5), seeing a 7% bop up in the key demo from last week. All of which puts Fox at the top spot both in the 18-49s with a 3.1/10 rating and total audience of 8.70 million.

Heading over to the ballpark for a moment, last night’s TBS primetime Mets victory over the Cubs hit a 5.9/10 in metered market ratings. While up double digits from comparable nights last year, last night’s game was down 16% from what the record hitting Game 3 in the NLCS pulled in on October 20.

With the top and the third-biggest markets in the country on the field, so to speak, those local MM numbers are of note too – and they are down as well as fans picked up pretty quickly where last night’s game was headed. In NYC, the Mets’ series win got an 18.8/30, down just over 1% from the local record-shattering night before. However, in Chicago, Wednesday’s loss drew an 18.9/30 – a 26% drop in MM results from the decade high of the October 20 Game 3.

Now the Mets have to wait and see if they’ll be facing the Toronto Blue Jays, who won last night’s American League Championship Series Game 4 7-1, or the Kansas City Royals in the World Series on October 27. Whatever that match up ends up being, they won’t be facing Empire next week for the scheduled Game 2 as Fox has the show off that night.

Otherwise Wednesday was a fairly steady night for most shows on the Big 4. On the CW, it was a different story with Arrow (0.9/3) down 10% from last week. Taking even more of a hit, Supernatural (0.6/2) fell 25% in the 18-49 demo from its October 14 show to match a series low in early numbers.

NBC’s Mysteries Of Laura (1.1/4) saw a 10% rise from its October 14 show while Modern Family (2.7/8), the second-highest-rated show of the night on the Big 4, Black-ish (1.8/5), Nashville (1.1/4), freshman Code Black (1.2/4) and Law & Order: SVU (1.5/5) were all even with last week. ABC’s The Goldbergs (2.1/7) bopped up 5% with lead-in The Middle (1.9/7) dipping 5% as did CBS’ Survivor (2.1/7). The vet reality show’s lead-out Criminal Minds (1.6/5) slipped 6%, to a series low in fast nationals, while Chicago P.D. (1.4/4) had a decline of 7% from its October 14 show to a fast nationals series low of its own.