This week has featured a lot of great TV episodes, but among the most highly touted was the Arrow and The Flash crossover, notably the second big one of its kind. Now, the same day ratings numbers are in, and both shows did pretty well, although the crossover episode certainly helped Arrow more than The Flash. Here’s how Wednesday’s episode did.
News this morning broke that last night’s Arrow did 3.6 million total viewers and averaged a 1.4 rating when it aired on the CW last night. For another network, that may not be super great news, but for the CW and Arrow, “Legends of Yesterday” was a particularly top-notch episode in the ratings. In fact, the crossover angle helped Arrow to hit a season high on Wednesday night. The network is also noting the show hit a season high in the male 18-49 demographic and was the #1 show in that demo during its time period at 8 p.m. ET.
To give you a gauge of how well last night’s episode did, the Arrow crossover episode was up a whopping 33% from last week’s episode. So, the fact that Barry Allen, some new villains, a chunk of the cast of Legends of Tomorrow and more were involved definitely helped the show’s ratings. A lot of people who may not have tuned in for an episode of Arrow ended up giving it a shot. And (minor spoiler) with all of the Oliver’s kid stuff and more, the Season 4 episode was certainly a good one to choose.
In comparison, The Flash also held up admirably. That crossover episode saw an 11% boost on Tuesday night. In addition, it did similar numbers to the Arrow episode, pulling in a 1.4 rating and 3.9 million total viewers, slightly besting Arrow. However, it certainly was not a season high for the series. Secondly, The Flash routinely trumps Arrow in the ratings, so a slight ratings boost is not even remotely close to the giant 33% increase that Arrow did on Wednesday night. It looks like a lot of individuals who typically only watch The Flash went ahead and showed up for Team Oliver last night, too.
I’m not all that interested in why they showed up for both—although that probably had something to do with Vandal Savage and all of the crossover subplots—but I am interested that they showed up. Arrow has done a lot of work to be a different show in Season 4 than in Season 3, and while some of those premises have worked better than others, I am more actively re-engaged with the show than I was last season.
We have one more episode left before Arrow takes its winter hiatus. Catch it next Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET only on the CW. And find out when your favorites are coming back with our midseason TV premiere schedule.
