Ratings: ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ ‘Scandal,’ ‘How to Get Away with Murder’ all rise for winter finales

Based on the ratings that we saw on ABC last night, one thing remains clear: Now is a great time to be on a Shonda Rhimes series.

The winners – “Grey’s Anatomy” (2.5 in the 18049 demographic) had the best overall performance, and also managed to give its best overall score since early in the season. What makes this show so appealing year in and year out? We’re not sure that there is one hard-and-fast thing that people are clinging to, but we do feel as though it just has a solid premise and universal feel that many different viewers can relate to.

Meanwhile, both “Scandal” (2.4) and “How to Get Away with Murder” (2.3) posted impressive gains in their own fall finales, which just goes to show further that people who may not watch live with regularity came back just for the purpose of seeing these shows.

The losers – “The Vampire Diaries” (0.5) is back once more at its series low, which is to us somewhat of a shame since this may actually be our favorite season of the show right now in the past three or four years. Meanwhile, apparently not many people cared enough about the fall finale of “Sleepy Hollow” (0.8) to want to watch it live. This is just another piece of evidence as to why this show is moving to Friday nights a little bit later in midseason. It’s just not getting the sort of numbers you really need in order to justify sticking around in primetime at this point.

If you want to get some more reaction to the “Grey’s Anatomy” finale courtesy of Martin Henderson, head over to the link here right now! Also, you can sign up right away to get some other TV news on everything we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)