Ratings: ‘Empire’ season 3 hits series low; ‘Code Black,’ ‘Arrow’ season 5 rise

Is the “Empire” starting to crumble? We don’t necessarily think that, but it’s clear that all of the various hiatuses that the Fox drama’s faced over the past few weeks clearly made an impact on the show’s ratings Wednesday night.

The latest episode drew a series-low 2.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic, and while that was still enough for it to be #1 on the night, there was a time when this show was pulling ratings over a 5.0 not too long again. Fox is the biggest culprit here for why this is happening, but what could they have really done? They’ve got an exclusive deal with Major League Baseball on the World Series, and it performs so well for them across several nights that it’d be poor business sense to scrap it. Also, they have an obligation to broadcast Presidential Debates. Whether or not people took the right message from said debate is a different subject, but we understand Fox’s moves.

Hopefully, viewers remember that the show is on and come back over time — but to be honest, we also think the whole Rhonda ghost-sex story may have been a little bit of a turn-off to some viewers out there.

As for some other ratings news on the night…

Winners – “Arrow” (0.7), “Survivor” (1.9), and “Code Black” (0.9) all recovered nicely from having to air against the World Series last week, just as we expected that they would. We still don’t think that “Code Black” is tracking very well towards a renewal, but that’s something to discuss a little further down the line. We’ll also credit “Designated Survivor” for sticking to its 1.2 rating, given that there was a time when we thought that the show’s ratings would sink because of the Presidential Election; it’s certainly possible that almost everyone is sick of hearing about it at the moment.

Losers – “Criminal Minds” (1.3) is sinking fast, and “Law & Order: SVU” (1.3) is also down versus its most-recent episode. (Photo: Fox.)