The new broadcast season is underway — though fewer seem to notice than in past years — and CBS accounts for three of the five top new series, according to an analysis by Comscore.
The Comscore study looked at viewing from September 1 through Nov. 15.
CBS’s Fire Country is the top series so far with a live-plus-3-day rating of 8.1 and an average audience of 7.7 million viewers over three days.
East New York, also on CBS, is the No. 2 freshman show with a 7.2 rating and 6.9 million viewers.
Rounding out the top five new series on broadcast are ABC’s Alaska Daily (6.5 rating, 6.3 million viewers), CBS’s So Help Me Todd (6.4/6/1 million) and Fox’s Monarch (5.9/5.7 million).
At a time when broadcast gets little respect for the audiences it generates, Comscore notes that every new series in the Top 5 had an average audience of more than 5 million households.
The top returning series on broadcast was CBS’s venerable 60 Minutes, with a 12.7 rating and 12.2 million viewers.
Two of NBC’s Chicago dramas, Chicago Fire and Chicago Med, were No. 2 and No. 3, drawing a 10.4 rating and 10 million viewers and a 10.2 rating/9.7 million viewer respectively.
The No. 4 returning broadcast series is CBS’s Blue Bloods (9.8/9.4 million) and NBC’s The Voice, (9.7/9.3 million) was No. 5.
The top new show on cable was Good Bones: Risky Business on HGTV, which drew a 1.4 rating and 1.3 million viewers.
Other top-rated new cable shows were I Love a Mama’s Boy: Mother Knows Best on TLC (1.2/1.2 million), Love & Hip Hop Atlanta on VH1 (1.2/1.2 million), Best Bobby Flay: Holiday Throwdown on Food Network (1.1/1.0 million) and Interview With The Vampire on AMC (1/926,100 viewers).
Paramount Network’s powerhouse Yellowstone was the top returning cable series with an 11 rating and 10.6 million viewers.
Other high-rated returning cable series were The Curse of Oak Island on History Channel (2.4/2.3 million); Sister Wives on TLC (2.4/2.3 million); Little People, Big World on TLC (2.2/2.1 million); and Tyler Perry’s Sistas on BET (1.8/1.7 million).
In terms of social media reaction, the top returning series on broadcast or cable was The Voice with 18.9 million actions on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok. Venerable Grey’s Anatomy was also big on social with 17.9 million interactions, followed by Yellowstone (11 million), Fox's Family Guy (10.3 million) and VH1's Love and Hip Hop (10.2 million).
The top five new series on social were The Winchesters on The CW, with 1.2 million interactions; Fire Country on CBS (881,000); ABC’s The Rookie: Feds (391,900); The CW’s Walker: Independence (339,500); and Alaska Daily (139,800).
According to Comscore, streaming series generated lots of social media activity.
Cobra Kai on Netflix had 9.5 million interactions, The D’Amelio Show on Hulu had 8.5 million interactions. Judy Justice on Amazon’s Freevee had 8 million interactions, The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime Video had 7.2 million and Manifest on Netflix had 4.7 million.
Wednesday on Netflix was the top new streaming show with 5.3 million social actions. Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power had 4 million social actions, 1899 on Netflix had 1 million, Interview With the Vampire on AMC Plus had 624,700 interactions and Star Wars: Andor on Disney Plus had 537,300.
The top five shows by total views on YouTube were The Voice with 107.4 million; Love and Hip Hop with 29.4 million; 60 Minutes with 20.4 million; The Masked Singer with 7 million; and Law & Order with 6.6 million.
The top five shows in total views on TikTok were The Voice with 146.3 million views, Yellowstone with 114.4 million, CBS’s Ghosts with 102 million, ABC’s Abbott Elementary with 76.6 million and Grey’s Anatomy with 50.7 million. ■
