Fox’s (FOX) TV phenomenon "Empire" is building its very own viewership empire.
A week before next Wednesday's two-hour season finale, the drama grew its audience for the ninth consecutive airing. Viewership topped 14 million, according to Neilson, a gain of 400,000 viewers from the previous week.
Yahoo Finance’s Jen Rogers thinks Empire’s ratings proves TV is alive and well.
“So many people are talking about linear television being dead, that everyone's going to time shifting and it's all about binging and streaming,” she says. “And here you go, an old fashion show on Fox that is gaining in its audience every week… Everyone saying this is going to be a year we see advertisers take a lot of money off the table for TV, but if you can still have hits maybe there's something there.”
Yahoo Finance Editor in Chief Andy Serwer agrees.
"There's all these different platforms, and radio is still around," he says. "Network television, live television is going to be around for a long time."
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Along with the finale of "Empire," Wednesday brings the Federal Open Market Committee announcement. Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Michael Santoli thinks the Fed may give a nod to the stronger dollar as something that might restrain growth and inflation.
“There's really some suspense here in terms of how they come out with a statement and whether it's going to have the word ‘patient’ in it. I say no. The word patient probably goes. It is probably replaced with some other hedge type languages that says we're going to be very very very data dependent,” he says. “It allows them to have maximum flexibility within their mandate.”
Serwer hopes next week will be free of Hillary e-mail stories.
“I really look forward to not talking about Hillary and her e-mail anymore. I mean that's wishful thinking. I'm so done,” he says.