The Nielsen ratings for the most recent season of TV are out and the show that came out on top was CBS’ Tracker starring This Is Us’ Justin Hartley. Tracker, which debuted in February after the Super Bowl, is the number one non-sports related primetime show on broadcast television. It follows Colter Shaw, who is a professional tracker and rewardist, meaning he uses his particular set of skills to look for missing people in exchange for reward money. He’s assisted by his lawyer, two handlers, and a requisite techie who can pretty much do it all. There’s also an overarching story involving the mysterious death of Colter’s dad when he was a child. The show is based on a book series.
Colter’s adventures are working for a lot of people because Tracker had an average of 11.58 million viewers. There’s a couple of neat things to note about its success. The first one is that the last time a brand new series hit number one one in the ratings was Survivor, all the way back in 2000. The second thing is that Tracker is also apparently the most watched new show since Desperate Housewives’s first season in 2004-2005.
Following NBC’s This Is Us, which aired from 2016 to 2022, Justin Hartley has segued into Tracker on CBS, another immediate success. Based on this abbreviated post double-strike season, Tracker finished No. 1 in primetime in total viewers (excluding sports), with an average 11.58 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Comparably, this marks the first time a new series in primetime topped the primetime charts since Survivor on CBS in the 2000-01 season. Tracker is also the most-watched new series since Desperate Housewives in 2004-05, which averaged 23.7 million viewers. In today’s highly fractionalized content environment (translation: the digital streaming services), that 11.58 million viewer tally for Tracker is probably the equivalent of what the residents of fictional Wisteria Lane scored 19 years ago.
CBS is also reporting 19 million multiplatform viewers, in total, for Tracker, on average, based on live plus 35-day viewing (for the first seven episodes). As the home of the No. 1 new series each season for the past nine years, the Eye network is no stranger to chart-topping TV shows. Specifically, Bull (in 2016-17), Young Sheldon (2017-18), FBI (2018-19), FBI: Most Wanted (2019-20), The Equalizer (2020-21), Ghosts (2021-22) and Fire Country (2022-23). This self-described “embarrassment of riches” is why CBS has chosen to prematurely end fan favorite So Help Me Todd, which has been the subject of a massive campaign for a third season by the fans in recent weeks.
As a result of the breakout success of Tracker, CBS next fall will move the Justin Hartley drama up one hour, to Sunday at 8 p.m. ET (flipping time periods with returning The Equalizer, which shifts to 9 p.m.).
Last year’s number one series was CBS’ NCIS, with 9.8 million viewers, so it is nice to see some new blood out there being competitive. Is anyone else watching Tracker? I stream it on Mondays through Paramount Plus! I love a good procedural. There’s something comforting about the format and I especially enjoy the ones that have a standalone (“monster-of-the-week”) format with an overarching story or mystery that gets slowly unrolled throughout the season. I didn’t realize this past week’s episode was the season finale, which is a bummer because we just got Dean Winchester Jensen Ackles as a big player and it ended just as the dad mystery thing was getting somewhere. I’m excited for Season 2 and hope that it’s just as much fun to watch as Season 1 was.
It reminds me of Reacher somewhat. Perfect skill set, never wrong, good team, but still tension before a satisfying conclusion, oh heck, that’s all of the procedurals! 🤣
I miss regular tv when we watched 1 of that show per week instead of all at once
Same, this makes me think of when I really looked forward to coming home and watching CSI once a week.
You can still do that. You don’t have to watch it on streaming. And if you do watch it on streaming just watch one episode.
you say that like im a responsible adult who makes sound decisions
🤣🤣🤣
Crap, now i have a new show to watch
My wife and I love this new show!
Team Chrishell I can’t support Justin Hartley. So much baggery.
But darnit So Help Me Todd is getting cancelled nooooo. That and Will Trent are my two fave shows. There have been some absolute gems of episodes this year.
Like general run-of-the-mill baggery, or truly problematic?
To me, he is just so. freaking. hot. Like I stop paying attention and just stare at him. And I’m sure he knows he’s that hot too.
Yikes. Tried a few episodes and it was just too dumb and cheesy. But it’s in the ‘blue sky’ genre of Suits and White Collar, which USA abandoned and a lot of people still crave, me included. But I’m re-watching White Collar on Netflix. So good.
I don’t understand the thinking over at USA Network. Everyone loved those shows, they had such loyal followings, and I basically just blindly trusted that any new show they put out would be good because they followed the Blue Skies/Characters Welcome vibe. And then they just decided to chuck it all in the bin and show wrestling reruns nonstop. And now no one watches USA.
I too am in the middle of my umpteenth White Collar rewatch!
This doesn’t look good and I have passed on it. Am I missing something?
It looks awful, but once you start it, it hooks you like Suits. I ignored Suits forever it seemed so cheesy and horrible and then I got sucked in. Not to suggest either are high art 🙂
I didn’t watch it right away because me too Team Chrishell and so much baggery lol. But then I watched it and got sucked in. It’s good damnit
I saw the headline and immediately said “Why?” This show just sounds so bland and uninteresting. I guess it fits right in with all the Chicago Whatevers and FBI Whatevers. I really don’t like this trend of suites of shows. Not my jam, but glad others are enjoying it I guess.
That’s how I see it too, an utterly forgettable CBS procedural with a total Mary Sue lead, who will never be called that because he’s male. And the actor is handsome but bland. He’s the TV Glenn Powell to me.
If other people are enjoying it, good for them, but it’s not for me.
I remember Hartley when he played adam Newman on the young and the restless.
I remember him from Smallville!
I remember him as Fox Crane from Passions 😂