American Horror Story: Coven Conjures Up Franchise's Best Finale Ratings Ever

The FX hit's Jan. 29 outing brought in 4.2 million viewers, significantly down from the 5.5 million who tuned in for the premiere in October

By Tierney Bricker Jan 30, 2014 11:07 PMTags
Sarah Paulson, AHS CovenMichele K. Short/FX

All wicked things must come to an end.

After 13 episodes of spells, scares and (many) deaths, American Horror Story: Coven closed the doors to Miss Robichaux's Academy for good on Wednesday, Jan. 29, and the episode delivered the FX franchise its highest-rated finale ever.

Coven's finale attracted 4.2 million viewers in its first airing, with 2.84 million in the adults 18-49 demo. Including its encore, the witchy drama scared up 5.8 million viewers and 3.88 million adults 18-49, according to FX.

And while "The Seven Wonders" beat out both Murder House and Asylum's finales, it still wasn't the franchises' highest-rated episode ever.

That honor still belongs to Coven's Oct. 9 season premiere, which brought in a record 5.54 million viewers with a 3.0 rating in the demo.

Coven has been the franchise's highest-rated miniseries yet, averaging 4 million viewers per episode (including DVR); season one averaged 2.8 million, while season two attracted an average of 2.5 million viewers.

FX has already renewed AHS for a fourth season, which will premiere in fall 2014.

"Put simply, Ryan Murphy is a master television producer. Time and time again he reinvents the form," FX CEO John Landgraf said in a statement at the time. "What he, co-creator Brad Falchuk and their producers Dante Di Loreto, Tim Minear, Jennifer Salt, James Wong, Brad Buecker, Jessica Sharzer, Douglas Petrie, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Alexis Martin Woodall and the entire production team and cast responsible for the American Horror Story franchise have done is nothing short of extraordinary. Every year, they create a riveting and brilliant new miniseries. AHS: Coven is the best yet, and I have no doubt that the next installment will be even better."