MTV’s The Challenge continues to take the top spot when it comes to cable ratings on Wednesdays, as the Double Agents season moves towards its finale.
With The Challenge Season 36, Episode 18, viewers saw the first part of TJ Lavin’s final, with the remaining teams having to brave some extreme weather conditions in Iceland while completing checkpoints.
That first part of the final scored high enough in terms of the key demographics for cable ratings to give The Challenge the edge over AEW’s professional wrestling and the Snowfall series.
The Challenge, Season 36, Episode 18 takes ratings top spot
For Wednesday, April 14, Double Agents Episode 18 had 929,000 viewers and had 0.53 ratings in the key 18-49 demographic. That was good enough to edge out All Elite Wrestling’s weekly show on TNT and an episode of Snowfall on FX. AEW received 0.44 ratings, while Snowfall had 0.35 ratings for Wednesday’s cable shows.
ESPN followed in fourth and fifth place, with another of their weekly NBA doubleheaders. The first game received 0.34 ratings, with the second game receiving 0.32, according to Showbuzz Daily’s report.
It’s also noted that The Challenge gained 0.04 in the ratings compared to Episode 17 ratings from the previous week. MTV’s reality competition series also easily won with female viewers, as it had 0.64 ratings for females in the 18-49 demographic. However, its rating for males in the same demographic was 0.42, which was lower than the four shows behind it in the ratings.
Nonetheless, there’s one more episode left and by the end, viewers will see which team claims the top spot in terms of the final.
Viewers bracing for Episode 19, Double Agents season winners
Most likely, Episode 19 of The Challenge: Double Agents on April 21 will win the Wednesday cable ratings again. That’s when the second part of TJ’s final will air on MTV, with an hour and a half episode.
In Episode 18, viewers saw four remaining teams embark on their journey to several checkpoints in Iceland. Before they started, host TJ Lavin indicated they were running the final during the tail end of a hurricane. That brought some fierce winds for competitors to deal with.
Along the way, one team became the overall leaders, as they won the first two checkpoints. The episode showed another team’s struggles due to one competitor’s serious injury and their teammate’s reluctance to participate in eating disgusting food at the second checkpoint.
Viewers are waiting to see if that team will survive past the first day of challenges to be amongst three remaining teams vying for either $100,000 in second-place prize money or $900,000 in first-place prize money.
There’s also The Challenge: Double Agents reunion on the way. However, there have yet to be official details given about when or where viewers will be able to watch it.
Meanwhile, the success of MTV’s reality competition series continues as there are cast member rumors for Season 37. So far, no details are known about when the season might air, but filming seems to be very close to starting.
The Challenge: Double Agents finale airs Wednesday at 8/7c on MTV.