TV Article 'This Is Us' ratings strong against World Series competition By James Hibberd James Hibberd James Hibberd is the former editor at large at Entertainment Weekly. He left EW in 2021. EW's editorial guidelines Published on October 26, 2016 04:38PM EDT Photo: Vivian Zink/NBC NBC’s This Is Us largely shrugged off some heavy sports competition Tuesday night, ranking once again as the highest-rated entertainment program as the World Series returned to Fox. For the third week in a row, the dramedy built upon its lead-in from The Voice, this time delivering 8.7 million viewers and a 2.4 rating among adults 18-49. That’s down just 8 percent from last week despite facing Game 1 on Fox and the opening of the NBA season on TNT. Put into context: The first five episodes of This Is Us have so far delivered the five highest-rated episodes of all 10 of the new fall broadcast dramas. Over on Fox, the World Series had the best overnights for Game 1 since 2009, and is up 20 percent from last year. The Cubs vs. Indians game delivered somewhere in the range of 18 million viewers. For more, here’s how all the new fall shows are doing so far this year.