If you’re looking to keep an eye on hot television trends, Fox’s Empire is the show to be observing. The Terrence Howard-led drama has grown its ratings every episode since the series premiere.

Episode 8 of Empire, which aired last night on Fox, drew 13.8 million viewers, marking the highest overnight ratings for the show yet. If that weren’t impressive enough, Empire hit a 5.3 rating in the adults 18-49 demo which is the highest in five years for a network telecast drama series (the record was previously held by an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, according to EW).

Empire’s growth has continued week over week since the show premiered in January. Check out these overnight ratings for the season so far (via Wikipedia):

– Episode 1: 9.9 million
– Episode 2: 10.32 million
– Episode 3: 11.07 million
– Episode 4: 11.36 million
– Episode 5: 11.47 million
– Episode 6: 11.96 million
– Episode 7: 13.02 million
– Episode 8: 13.80 million

These numbers, by the way, grow dramatically when you add in DVR playback. For example, Episode 1 had 13.95 million viewers after DVR playback was accounted for, and Episode 5 had 15.68 million.

Empire’s ratings surge is extremely rare – It’s the first show in at least 23 years to grow week to week over its first five episodes, according to a press release from Fox in early February.

In a best case scenario, a television show’s viewership numbers will only linger around its season premiere ratings. Often times they’ll fall after the season premiere. It is not typical for a show to continue growing week after week, let alone this dramatically.

Empire follows a hip hop and entertainment company’s owner (Howard) and his family. Check out a trailer below: