Outlander season 4 premiere ratings: Will they set some sort of record?
Check out a recent Outlander video – The one below is all about some of our expectations for the premiere — a good primer for those who have not seen it yet. If you enjoy this video be sure to subscribe for some other updates — also, take a look at our official playlist.
Tonight, we’ll be back with our full review of what transpires at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. For now, the question we want to raise is simple: Will this episode set a viewership record? We’re speaking here mostly in live+same-day viewers, which is the same measurement we have a tendency to draw from within these pieces.
To date, the live ratings record for Outlander season 4 is 1.72 million, which is what the famed Print Shop reunion episode “A. Malcolm” drew in October 2017. That episode was one of the most-anticipated of the entire series, both for longtime book readers and also people who had seen all of the promotion build to that point. This is going to be a hard ratings record for the series to topple, and for a number of different reasons — most notably that there are many viewers out there who would prefer to watch the show early on the app. These numbers don’t count for official ratings; they are uncovered and released by Starz on a later date. Live+same-day ratings are therefore arbitrary, but we do think that there is still value to them in that you can see how many traditional TV viewers want to sit down and watch the show all at once.
Outlander is buoyed entering season 4 by having a rather extensive promotional campaign behind it. It also has a new setting in North America that may be appreciated by many history buffs who are out there. Yet, live viewership has a tendency to go down every single year and there is a lot of competition out there tonight in between meaningful NFL football and also programming on other networks.
Our current expectation
We feel like season 4 is going to start with around 1.5 million viewers — not the record, but still impressive. We do think that there will be a record set when you include every other form of viewing into the mix. Typically cable shows continue to gain viewers until they get to around season 5, so we don’t think Outlander is at a point where it will start shedding weekly viewers yet. One of the things that helps it is that there are such long breaks between seasons that when it is gone, there are a number of viewers who come to miss it.
Related News – Check out a sneak peek right now for the upcoming premiere episode
Do you think that the Outlander season 4 premiere is going to end up setting a ratings record? Be sure to share some of your thought below. (Photo: Starz.)