'Sharknado 3' Ratings Drop Below Previous Installment

Ian Ziering and Tara Reid star in "Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!" (Photo by SyFy).

LOS ANGELES - It looks like the "Sharknado" phenomenon may be ebbing at SyFy as the newest release from the franchise, "Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!" dropped 31 percent from the previous movie.

The third installment of the campy TV movie which aired on SyFy Wednesday night earned a 0.9 rating in the important 18-49 demographic, or down 31 percent from last year's “Sharknado 2: The Second One.” But it's not all bad news for the franchise as “Sharknado 3” basically doubled the audience size from the movie that started it all with its 2.8 million viewers. The first “Sharknado” hit the small screen on July 11, 2013 to an estimated 1.4 million viewers.

The numbers are still a big improvement over the usual SyFy programming on Wednesday nights, which average a 0.3 rating or about 888,000 viewers.

'Sharknado 3" starred Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Cassie Scerbo, Frankie Muniz, Ryan Newman and David Hasselhoff, along with a number of cameos by notable stars such as Kim Richards, Bo Derek, Mark Cuban, Cindy Margolis, Bill Engvall and many others.

For those who couldn't get enough of the airborne man-eating sharks, a sequel is already in the works after getting the green light from SyFy.