Ratings: ‘Empire’ episode 8 even bigger; ‘Survivor: Worlds Apart’ solid; ‘Amazing Race’ ho-hum

The ratings machine that is “Empire” on Fox is once again adding to its foundation.

In its eight episode, the series yet again posted a new series high: A 5.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic. This is yet again a massive achievement for Fox and for executive producer Lee Daniels, and it could rise yet again in the final numbers. While the show does not necessarily post enormous gains week to week, it has incrementally grown its audience since the series premiere. While we’re not going to say that the show is perfect, we feel like so much of its appeal is just that it’s different. It combines the elements of a musical, a primetime soap, and a gritty character drama. There are a variety of reasons why people will watch, and it may be reaching people who don’t always watch television live.

In other news, the season premiere of “Survivor: Worlds Apart” also delivered a decent performance in a 2.3 rating. This is about where most of the past few seasons have fared, so CBS should continue to be fine with that. Meanwhile, “The Amazing Race” (1.5) was a slight disappointment given the lead-in and the fundamental shake-up to the show. This is one of our favorite reality shows of all time (we’re not exaggerating here in saying that we’ve never missed an episode), but it may be time to put the show on hiatus for a few years, and allow viewers to miss it before giving it another shot.

The one other thing we’d note is that “Law & Order: SVU” (1.6) improved over some of its recent performances against “Empire.”