Disney Night drives ABC to win

Disney Night helped Dancing with the stars to become the top entertainment program on October 22 in Adults 18-49 (0.72 rating), according to Nielsen.

The episode also set a new record by counting more than 16 million viewer votes for the teams. That means more votes are counted today than when NFL star Hines Ward and Kym Johnson won in 2011’s most-watched season 12, when a whopping 22 million viewers tuned in to the show. Voters can vote on which celebrities they want to keep via text message or via dwtsvote.abc.com.

This is the first season in DWTS‘ story that it has released viewer votes.

DWTS also topped the previous week’s episode in viewers by 10 percent (4.85 million vs. 4.40 million), as well as adults 18-49 with 7 percent (0.72 rating vs. 0.67 rating). This season’s Disney Night was up 24 percent over last year (0.72 rating vs. 0.58 rating).

Season to date, DWTS is the No. 1 entertainment program broadcast in Adults 18-49 (rating 0.69).

The October 29 episode of DWTS is themed Halloween Nightmares.