Sons of Anarchy - Episode 4.01 - Best ratings ever + ratings recap

SAMCRO fans, grab your cut and let your bike roar in the streets to celebrate the extremely good ratings the premiere of Sons of Anarchy received yesterday.





Last night at 10pm on FX, nothing less than 4.94 million viewers watched the 90-minute premiere (59 minutes without the commercials) from 10pm to 11:30pm ! This is simply the best ratings of the show. Also, another record was broken since 2.4% of people in the 18-49 demographic were watching SoA (only NBC with America's Got Talent did better with 3.1% on the key demo).

Including the 11:30pm and 01:00am reruns, an impressive total of 7.25 million viewers (4.76 million of them in the 18-49 demo) watched the premiere on FX last night ! And including the +7 days viewings, FX is projecting that episode 4.01 of Sons of Anarchy will be the most watched episode ever of one of their original series ! FYI, seasons 2 and 3 of Nip/Tuck currently hold the best ratings of any FX series, with episode 2.16 (5.2 million), episode 3.01 (5.3 million) and episode 3.14/3.15 (5.7 million viewers).

To compare with last night's outstanding ratings (I'm sure the episode deserves it), I gathered the ratings of all previous 39 episodes of Sons of Anarchy (I couldn't find the ones for episode 1.04 though). Here they are :

Tuesdays at 10 on FX :

Episode 1.01 (September 3rd, 2008) : 2.53 million viewers.
Episode 1.02 (September 10th, 2008) : 2.20 million viewers.
Episode 1.03 (September 17th, 2008) : 2.10 million viewers.
Episode 1.04 (September 24th, 2008) : unknown.
Episode 1.05 (October 1st, 2008) : 2.19 million viewers.
Episode 1.06 (October 8th, 2008) : 2.09 million viewers.
Episode 1.07 (October 15th, 2008) : 1.87 million viewers.
Episode 1.08 (October 22th, 2008) : 2.14 million viewers.
Episode 1.09 (October 29th, 2008) : 2.06 million viewers.
Episode 1.10 (November 5th, 2008) : 2.15 million viewers.
Episode 1.11 (November 12th, 2008) : 2.22 million viewers.
Episode 1.12 (November 19th, 2008) : 2.46 million viewers.
Episode 1.13 (November 25th, 2008) : 2.48 million viewers.

Episode 2.01 (September 8th, 2009) : 4.30 million viewers.
Episode 2.02 (September 15th, 2009) : 3.75 million viewers.
Episode 2.03 (September 22th, 2009) : 3.50 million viewers.
Episode 2.04 (September 29th, 2009) : 3.76 million viewers.
Episode 2.05 (October 6th, 2009) : 3.66 million viewers.
Episode 2.06 (October 13th, 2009) : 3.31 million viewers.
Episode 2.07 (October 20th, 2009) : 3.70 million viewers.
Episode 2.08 (October 27th, 2009) : 3.39 million viewers.
Episode 2.09 (November 3rd, 2009) : 3.52 million viewers.
Episode 2.10 (November 10th, 2009) : 3.38 million viewers.
Episode 2.11 (November 17th, 2009) : 3.48 million viewers.
Episode 2.12 (November 24th, 2009) : 3.44 million viewers.
Episode 2.13 (December 1st, 2009) : 4.33 million viewers.

Episode 3.01 (September 7th, 2010) : 4.14 million viewers / 2.1% of the 18-49 demo.
Episode 3.02 (September 14th, 2010) : 3.37 million viewers / 1.8% of the 18-49 demo.
Episode 3.03 (September 21th, 2010) : 3.48 million viewers / 1.8% of the 18-49 demo.
Episode 3.04 (September 28th, 2010) : 2.98 million viewers / 1.6% of the 18-49 demo.
Episode 3.05 (October 5th, 2010) : 3.12 million viewers / 1.6% of the 18-49 demo.
Episode 3.06 (October 12th, 2010) : 2.85 million viewers / 1.6% of the 18-49 demo.
Episode 3.07 (October 19th, 2010) : 2.60 million viewers / 1.3% of the 18-49 demo.
Episode 3.08 (October 26th, 2010) : 2.67 million viewers / 1.4% of the 18-49 demo.
Episode 3.09 (November 2nd, 2010) : 3.35 million viewers / 1.7% of the 18-49 demo.
Episode 3.10 (November 9th, 2010) : 3.18 million viewers / 1.6% of the 18-49 demo.
Episode 3.11 (November 16th, 2010) : 3.40 million viewers / 1.7% of the 18-49 demo.
Episode 3.12 (November 23th, 2010) : 3.27 million viewers / 1.7% of the 18-49 demo.
Episode 3.13 (November 30th, 2010) : 3.60 million viewers / 1.8% of the 18-49 demo.

Episode 4.01 (September 6th, 2011) : 4.94 million viewers / 2.4% of the 18-49 demo.

Average season 1 : 2.21 million viewers.
Average season 2 : 3.65 million viewers.
Average season 3 : 3.23 million viewers.

The best basic cable channel (imo) is busy this week : after the premiere of their one true hit last night (Justified and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, although rather successful, are nowhere near the Sons), the 93rd and final episode of Rescue Me airs in a few hours and the season finale of both Wilfred & Louie will air tomorrow night (both these outstanding comedies are renewed).