Ratings: ‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ evens up with ‘Hotel’

Through five episodes of “American Horror Story: Roanoke,” it does not have the edge in the ratings versus the first five episodes of “American Horror Story: Hotel.” Yet, at the same time there could be a few signs out there that the tradition could be changing.

The ratings for last night’s fifth episode are in (at least for the live+same day measure), and there’s a lot for FX to be happy about here. This episode drew a 1.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which is the same number that “Hotel” drew for its own fifth episode.

This is a show that tends to slowly lose ratings momentum as the season progresses, but there could be a few things that the network is doing specifically this time to change things up. First things first, it’s almost like it is two different stories in one. The first half of this season focused on “My Roanoke Nightmare,” and the show-within-a-show concept that we saw with that as we learned precisely what Shelby and Matt went through in the woods. Now, we could be moving into a different story altogether, given that Cheyenne Jackson was seen playing presumably a producer in the preview for episode 6. Our sentiment is that may he is going to bring some sort of film crew to investigate what happened out there further, and if the is the case, we certainly do imagine that disaster is going to strike.

As a whole, “Roanoke” is up over 20% on the average for “Hotel,” mostly because the ratings for the latter show really started to full off of a cliff after we got around to the time after Halloween. It’s possible that something similar could happen near the end of this season, as well, but what “Roanoke” has going for it at present is that there are only ten episodes, and it will end before we get around to the holidays.

Interested in getting our most-recent review for “American Horror Story” without delay? Then be sure to head over here. (Photo: FX.)