‘Duck Dynasty’ Third Season Finale Crushes Records [Video]

The Duck Dynasty record-smashing TV series just won’t quit. The numbers are out, and analysts are using words like “obliterated” to describe what A&E’s biggest reality show ever is doing to previous TV records.

The Duck Commander manufacturing family reeled in a cool 9.6 million viewers for its third season finale on Wednesday night — and it faced some extremely tough competition.

American Idol (Fox) drew 12.5 million viewers and Survivor (CBS) pulled 10.3 million. However, both of those long-running popular favorites are available on free broadcast TV.

Best of all, Duck Dynasty is by far the winner in the highly desirable age 18 to 49 year old category. After all, those are the folks who actually spend money based on what they see on TV.

As a result, it was given a 4.3 rating — making it the TV industry’s highest-rating show on Wednesday night. By comparision, runner-up American Idol enjoyed a puny 3.2

What’s even more amazing is that the previous record-breaker for A&E ratings was for Duck Dynasty’s second season finale, which drew what was then considered an absolutely astounding 6.5 million viewers.

So everybody’s loving the West Monroe, Louisiana family at the center of the one reality show that really seems to keep it real. Heck, in March, The Inquisitr noted that Duck Dynasty had even passed up Idol for social media hits.

The colorful Robertson family may be country, but they’re nobody’s fools. They are currently engaged with negotiations with A&E for higher pay, even though all of the cast members reportedly have existing deals.

One rumor is that they’re asking for increases of as much as $200,000 an episode.

However, they also don’t want to break up the momentum. As of this writing, they plan to continue production on season four, even as they work out the higher pay that they probably deserve for the Duck Dynasty record smashing hit.

[Duck Dynasty photo by s_bukley / Shutterstock.com]