Vikings season 5 episode 3 ratings rise following the premiere
At this point it’s almost expected that when a show follows up a premiere, it’s going to be doing so by drawing lower ratings for that episode. Yet, that didn’t happen for the History drama. Vikings season 5 episode 3 managed to keep the entirety of its 0.6 rating that it had the week prior in the 18-49 demographic, and then managed to improve its total audience to almost 2.3 million. That is actually higher than the total average audience of season 4 — on average to date, season 5 is only down a little under 3% in viewers from the season prior. That’s incredible for any TV series, let alone one as serialized and dependent on past seasons as this one is. While Vikings remains somewhat overlooked in many of the major awards-show races, it has become more of a prestige series over time. Speaking of awards, the 6th annual CarterMatt awards are currently running and Alex Hogh Andersen (Ivar) is nominated for Underrated Actor (here) while we have nominated Katheryn Winnick (Lagertha) for Best Actress (here). You can vote for you favorites to win, so be sure you voice is heard.
While in some ways the ratings for Vikings don’t matter given the show’s immediate future (it has already been renewed for a season 6) there are still some other reasons to be watching the numbers. For one, its performance could help aid in a season 7 renewal, or it could also end up being a factor in determining whether or not History continues to bring in some other scripted series. They did this with Knightfall, and we feel like we should point out that the premiere of this show Wednesday generated a 0.4 rating and almost 1.8 million viewers. For a new series airing during the holiday season that’s a reasonably good start; we’ll see if it can build more of an audience in the weeks to come. We do love any series focusing on the knights Templar so we’re glad that it was green-lit in the first place.
For both these shows the next few weeks will be a great test. While Vikings/Knightfall are not colliding against the holiday directly, they are going to air at a time of the year when many viewers may, understandably, be focusing more on some other things.
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Also, you can head over to the link here in the event you want some more news regarding the series, including our most-recent episode review. Meanwhile, like CarterMatt on Facebook for additional updates on the show plus others we cover. (Photo: History.)