Lucious (Terrence Howard) and Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) on Empire
Fox

Empire, the new “it” show on Fox, has succeeded in reeling in more viewers from week to week.

For Wednesday night’s two-hour season 1 finale, the show broke all prior records, scoring on average some 16.7 million viewers, a rise of 12 percent from the 14.9 million watching last week’s episode, USA Today reported.

According to the news site, Empire now ranks as the top-rated network series among those ages 18 to 49. Fox boasted that Wednesday represented the highest-rated night for entertainment programming among this age group since January 2012’s American Idol premiere.

The hit show will return to screens next fall with 18 or so episodes, according to USA Today.

Read more at USA Today.