Record Ratings for DWTS Premiere: 20 Million

The eleventh season of Dancing With the Stars premiered on ABC the other night and, aside from quite a colorful assembly of celebrities, it also brought record ratings for the network.

Given pre-premiere hype, about 21 million (20.14 million at the first estimate) viewers tuned in to see the first episode of the dance competition, making of ABC the definite winner for the night, as TV By The Numbers can confirm.

“ABC has to be feeling pretty good, with both CBS & NBC at least content for a day. Over at Fox it’s more ‘oh my!’ and not in a good way,” the e-zine says, citing figures by Nielsen.

“ABC won the night with adults 18-49 and total viewers with both Dancing with the Stars and Castle up 22% in adults 18-49 vs. last year’s premiere,” the same report says.

“DWTS averaged a 5.0 rating between 8p-10p. Any overrun for Dancing with the Stars will cause later adjustments for Castle in the finals,” the e-zine further notes.

Runner up for the night for the same timeslot was Fox with the season premiere of “House M.D.,” which also brought in a strong 10.54 million viewers.

Back to Dancing With the Stars, rumors about diva behavior backstage aside, viewers also got to see the first dancing casualty, says People magazine.

In the end, it came down to two pairs, Kyle Massey and Lacey Schwimmer, and David Hasselhoff and Kym Johnson, with The Hoff having to wave his goodbye.

“It’s been a great ride. I feel bad for Kym because she worked so hard to try and get me where I was going. I’m just so proud that my daughters are here and got to see me go this far. So, it’s great,” the former Baywatch star said when it came to leave the show.

“On Tuesday’s elimination show, the former Baywatch star was joined in the bottom by Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino and Kurt Warner,” People informs.

“Both stars were deemed safe due to their combined scores – made up by judges’ points and viewers’ votes – leaving only Hasselhoff and Massey up for elimination,” the magazine further notes.