Topline
The premiere of the final season of “Young Sheldon” on CBS was the most-watched show across all of primetime television last week, and had the largest live audience of any network sitcom to premiere in the last two months, newly released Nielsen data shows.
Key Facts
CBS aired the first episode of “Young Sheldon” season 7, the show’s last, to 7.99 million live and same-day viewers, a larger audience than any other program on cable or network television for the week of Feb. 12 to Feb. 18.
It was the largest same-day audience for the hit “Big Bang Theory” spinoff in almost four years—since more than 10 million people watched the finale of season 3 in April 2020—and it beat the average viewership for any single Season 6 episode.
The top 16 shows on primetime broadcast TV last were all on CBS: In second place was “FBI” (7.7 million viewers), followed by “60 Minutes” (7.4 million), “NCIS” (7.3 million) and “Ghosts (7 million).
Since the start of sitcom “premiere season” at the end of December, NBC, CBS and ABC have released new episodes of ten popular sitcoms.
Recent Broadcast Sitcom Premieres (live + Same-Day Tv Audience)
R“Young Sheldon” (7.99 million) — The first episode of the show’s final season on CBS drew impressive ratings on Feb. 15.
“Ghosts” (7 million) — Airing immediately after “Young Sheldon,” the third season of the CBS show was the fifth most-watched program of the week with its Feb. 15 premiere.
“The Neighborhood” (5.79 million) — The Feb. 23 sixth season premiere of the CBS show was the ninth most popular program of the week.
“Bob Hearts Abishola” (5.2 million) — CBS aired the start to the fifth and final season of the show created by Chuck Lorre, also the creator of “Young Sheldon,” on Feb. 12.
“Night Court” (3.8 million) — The second season of NBC’s “Night Court” reboot launched on Jan. 2, which was watched by 3.8 million on live TV.
“The Conners” (3.6 million) — The sixth season premiere on ABC was the 15th most-viewed program across all of broadcast television in Super Bowl week when it premiered Feb. 7.
“Extended Family” (3.57 million) — The series premiere of the new show starring Jon Cryer on NBC aired on Dec. 23 and was the 11th most-watched network show of the week.
“Abbott Elementary” (2.8 million) — The much-anticipated premiere of the show’s third season (a fourth has already been confirmed) aired back-to-back episodes on ABC on Feb. 7.
“Not Dead Yet” (2.56 million) — After a lengthy delay, ABC premiered the second season of “Not Dead Yet” on Feb. 7.
“The Great North” (812,000) — The fourth-season premiere of the animated sitcom on Fox was watched by 812,000 people on Jan. 7 and did not break into the top 100 on the week’s broadcast ratings chart.
Surprising Fact
“Young Sheldon,” a spin off of “The Big Bang Theory,” has seen a surge in popularity since it was added to Netflix for streaming in late November. The show is now available to watch on Netflix, HBO’s Max and Paramount+. In December, the show was the most popular title across all of streaming with a total of 6.7 billion viewing minutes from Nov. 27 to Dec. 31.
Tangent
While still an indicator of a show’s success, live TV audiences only paint a portion of the picture in the age of streaming and delayed viewership. Like for many other shows, major network sitcoms often hit their peak viewership in the days and weeks after they air on live television. Though it fell to network rivals “Abbott Elementary” and “The Conners” in live audiences, for example, “Not Dead Yet” reached the largest debut audience for a comedy on ABC in years after delayed viewing was factored in with 10.2 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The title was held by “The Conners” before, which premiered to 10.56 million viewers in 2018. In delayed viewing, 9.1 million people watched each episode of “Abbott Elementary” season 2.
What To Watch For
A sitcom premiere still to come. Fox will debut the second season of “Animal Control” on March 6.
