Photo courtesy of BravoTV ©
Back for a 3rd season, the Real Housewives of Atlanta returned in 2011 with an additional two new cast members; Phaedra Parks and Cynthia Bailey, and phased out Lisa Wu Hartwell. Originals, Nene Leakes, Kim Zolciak and Sheree Whitfield were all retained. The season 3 finale aired on January 30th, 2011 and smashed all Real Housewives rating’s records with a massive 4,381,000 and 2.4 in the 18-49 demo. Ratings like these hadn’t been seen on Bravo since it lost Project Runway to Lifetime in 2009.
After Season 1 had just 8 episodes and Season 2 had 14, the 3rd season had 16 regular episodes and 2 reunion episodes making it 18 in total. The average audience for each first run episode this season, was 2,965,000 (including an average of 1.56 in the 18-49) and is still the highest averaging season across all Real Housewives franchises.
| Episode# | Time Aired | Date_Aired | Episode Name | Total Audience | 18-49 Demo | S03E01 | 9:00 PM | 4-Oct-10 | New Attitude | 2,419,000 | 1.30 | S03E02 | 9:00 PM | 11-Oct-10 | Model Behavior | 2,260,000 | 1.20 | S03E03 | 9:00 PM | 18-Oct-10 | White Hot | 2,247,000 | 1.20 | S03E04 | 9:00 PM | 25-Oct-10 | Petty Boughetto | 2,491,000 | 1.20 | S03E05 | 9:00 PM | 1-Nov-10 | Hot Mama’s Day | 2,749,000 | 1.40 | S03E06 | 9:00 PM | 7-Nov-10 | Trashed Collection | 2,490,000 | 1.40 | S03E07 | 9:00 PM | 14-Nov-10 | She Can Dance? | 2,776,000 | 1.50 | S03E08 | 9:00 PM | 21-Nov-10 | Is There A Doctor In The House? | 2,999,000 | 1.60 | S03E09 | 9:00 PM | 28-Nov-10 | NeNe Get Your Gun | 3,221,000 | 1.70 | S03E10 | 9:00 PM | 5-Dec-10 | Auto-Tuned-Up | 3,222,000 | 1.70 | S03E11 | 9:00 PM | 12-Dec-10 | Contract Player | 2,928,000 | 1.50 | S03E12 | 9:00 PM | 19-Dec-10 | Not So Fine Print | 3,220,000 | 1.70 | S03E13 | 10:00 PM | 9-Jan-11 | Tour-ture | 3,347,000 | 1.80 | S03E14 | 10:00 PM | 16-Jan-11 | Flamingo Road Block | 3,272,000 | 1.60 | S03E15 | 10:00 PM | 23-Jan-11 | Floridon’t | 3,426,000 | 1.70 | S03E16 | 10:00 PM | 30-Jan-11 | The Bride and the Doom | 4,381,000 | 2.40 | S03E17 | 10:00 PM | 13-Feb-11 | Reunion Part I | 2,405,000 | 1.20 | S03E18 | 10:00 PM | 20-Feb-11 | Reunion Part II | 2,652,000 | 1.40 | Average Season 3 | 2,916,944 | 1.53 | Average Season 3 Excluding Reunion | 2,965,500 | 1.56 | Average Season 2 | S3 v S2 | +2.94% | 2,833,643 | 1,994,000 | Average Season 1 | S3 v S1 | +94.46% | 1,500,000 | 1,123,375 |
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Source: Nielsen Media Research via TVByTheNumbers and/or TheFutonCritic