2023 TV Ratings Winners: The Biggest Hits and Unexpected Successes

Hollywood’s linear television business continued to trend downward in 2023, but pop culture phenomena — from Taylor Swift boosting NFL viewership to the “Suits” streaming sensation — gave the industry reasons to celebrate ratings-wise throughout the year.

As HBO hit drama “Succession” closed out its fourth and final season with loyal viewership that grew through the show’s epic conclusion — which was up 68% from the Season 3 finale — the network introduced a post-apocalyptic drama “The Last of Us,” whose Season 1 growth brought its finale just shy of the viewership brought in by the “House of the Dragon” Season 1 finale.

The major broadcasters also took several swings that paid off ratings-wise, as the series premiere of NBC’s “Night Court” reboot brought in a whopping 7.5 million viewers, while ABC’s “The Golden Bachelor” averaged a viewership well beyond the most recent season of “The Bachelor.” Even as CBS pivoted its fall lineup because of the Hollywood strikes this summer to include Paramount Global shows “Yellowstone” and “NCIS: Sydney,” both programs found ratings success among the network’s audience.

Still, there were several ratings hits no one could have seen coming, including the “Suits” streaming phenomenon this summer after its return to Netflix’s library. Pop culture coincided with performance in the case of “Vanderpump Rules” Season 10, as the Scandoval controversy broke in March, while Taylor Swift’s attendance at several Kansas City Chiefs games also boosted the NFL team’s performance.

For the full breakdown of this year’s biggest ratings winners, see below.

“The Last of Us” (HBO)

HBO’s adaptation of Naughty Dog’s video game franchise created a new tentpole series for the network. The Jan. 15 series premiere brought in 4.7 million viewers across its linear and then-HBO Max platforms. It was HBO’s second-largest debut since 2010’s premiere of “Boardwalk Empire,” behind only “House of the Dragon.”

The second episode grew by a million viewers for an audience of 5.7 million, before Episode 3, which was lauded for Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett’s tender performance, brought in 6.4 million viewers — a 37% uptick from the show’s premiere and a 12% jump over Episode 2. The fourth episode drew in 7.5 million viewers, and the show scored a new viewership high with the release of its penultimate eighth episode, which drew in 8.1 million viewers. The Season 1 finale of the apocalyptic drama continued to grow with 8.2 million viewers, marking a 74.5% increase from the series premiere, and about a million viewers off from the Season 1 finale viewership for “House of the Dragon,” which scored 9.3 million viewers.

As HBO closed out the final seasons of beloved series “Barry” and “Succession,” new installments of “The Last of Us” — which creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann revealed might take multiple seasons to adapt video game sequel “The Last of Us Part II” — guarantee a loyal fanbase for the network and streamer in years to come.

“Night Court” (NBC)

The reboot of NBC sitcom “Night Court,” which ran from 1984 to 1992, brought in fans of the original eager to see John Larroquette reprise his role as Dan Fielding, as well as new viewers with the additions of “The Big Bang Theory” star Melissa Rauch and “One Day at a Time” actress India de Beaufort.

The series premiere of “Night Court” on Jan. 17 nabbed a total viewership of 7.5 million and a 1.0 rating in the key broadcast demo among adults 18-49, with the second episode back-t0-back episode scoring 6.9 total viewers and a 0.9 ratings score, according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data. With combined figures from broadcast and Peacock, the premiere episode reached 8.0 million viewers with the 8:30 telecast scoring 7.2 million viewers, leading “Night Court” to have the best first day of viewing for any NBC series episode on Peacock, including new and returning shows.

Over the course of its first season, “Night Court” averaged 4.1 million viewers and a rating of 0.52 — up significantly from NBC freshman reboot “Quantum Leap,” which averaged 2.31 million viewers and a 0.33 rating, which was similarly renewed for a second season.

After introducing a cliffhanger involving fellow original cast member Marsha Warfield in its Season 1 finale, “Night Court” is in a likely spot to maintain its viewers as it returns with new episodes on Jan. 2 (and a holiday episode airing Saturday, Dec. 23).

“Vanderpump Rules” Season 10 (Bravo)

As the affair between “Vanderpump Rules” stars Tom Sandoval (Ariana Madix’s longtime boyfriend) and Rachel Leviss — dubbed Scandoval by fans — lit the internet aflame in March, the drama brought a renewed interest to the Bravo reality series.

After the scandal first broke on March 3, the March 8 episode of “Vanderpump Rules” drew in the show’s highest total viewers and highest-rated episode among the 18-49 demo in nearly three years. While news broke during the pre-recorded rollout of Season 10, even more fans tuned in to watch Madix, Sandoval and Leviss address the controversy during the May 17 finale episode, which scored a series high both among total viewers, with an audience of 4.1 million, and in the key 18-49 adult demo with 2.4 million viewers.

The first reunion special on May 24 grew to 4.6 million total viewers across platforms in three days of viewing, making it the most-watched “Vanderpump Rules” episode to date and the most-watched Bravo episode across all series in over nine years. Following all three reunion episodes that followed, the 10th season reached over 11.4 million total viewers across platforms, with more than 115 million hours logged for the season by mid-June. We’ll see if the show can retain interest when it returns for Season 11 on Jan. 30.

“Succession” Season 4 (HBO)

As the prestige drama returned for its fourth and final season, viewership for “Succession” hit series highs almost every week as fans waited eagerly to see which Roy — or which outsider — would be crowned head of Waystar Royco. Season 4 debuted to 2.3 million viewers across HBO and then-HBO Max on March 26 — a 62% uptick from the Season 3 premiere — before setting a new series high of 2.5 million viewers for its third episode. The drama continued to score series viewership highs for its fourth episode, which received 2.6 million viewers, as well as it sixth episode, which brought in 2.7 million total viewers, before going out strong with the Season 4 finale bringing its largest viewership with 2.9 million viewers — up 68% from the Season 3 finale.

While “Succession” did not come close to the 9.3 million viewers who tuned into the Season 1 finale of “House of the Dragon,” the show’s cult following delivered an impressive upward trajectory in anticipation of the drama’s conclusion.

“Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love” (NBC)

Though the one-time special was smaller in scale, TV legend Carol Burnett’s dreams for a 90th birthday filled with a “variety show with live entertainment” paid off in strides, both for Burnett and in the ratings.

The two-hour special on April 26, titled “Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love,” scored 7.6 million total viewers on NBC, making it the night’s most-watched broadcast program. Not only did the special rank as NBC’s most-watched primetime entertainment special since the 2020 Golden Globes, but the tribute program also was the fourth most-watched primetime entertainment specials in the spring 2023 season, behind the Oscars, which brought in 16.7 million viewers, the Grammys, which scored 12.5 million viewers, and ABC’s “Rocking New Year’s Eve.” NBC aired an encore of the special later that week and again in August.

“Suits” (USA Network and streaming on Netflix and Peacock)

“Suits” was the unexpected hit show of the summer. It streamed on Netflix and Peacock several years after its 2011-2019 run on USA Network.

After being first released on Netflix on June 17, the legal drama logged 2.3 billion streaming minutes from June 19 to June 25 across both Netflix and Peacock. Then it set its first record for the most streamed acquired title with 3.1 billion minutes of viewing during the week of June 26 to July 2, a 36% increase in viewership from the prior week, according to Nielsen streaming figures. The next week, July 3-9, the show broke its own record by tallying 3.67 billion viewing minutes in a single week, as it did the next week from July 10-16, which added another 24 million minutes with 3.70 billion minutes. By July 17-23, “Suits” marked its fourth week in a row as the most watched acquired series as it continued to set new records in its category with 3.9 billion minutes viewed — marking its most-watched week to date.

The “Suits” craze slowed down the next week as it tallied 3.6 billion minutes from July 24-30 and 3.2 billion minutes during the week of July 31-Aug. 6. By Aug. 14-20, viewing for the drama dipped below 3 million to hit 2.8 billion minutes, and continued to drop throughout the fall.

While Netflix’s new viewing data release only accounts for part of the “Suits” craze, the report reveals that the USA drama tallied 599.1 million hours viewed on Netflix from January through June, with Season 1 marking the highest viewership of the installments with 129.1 million hours viewed.

The streaming juggernaut is not just making moves at Netflix, as NBCUniversal is in the early stages of developing a spin-off series set in the “Suits” universe, and audience’s love for the show has even inspired USA Network executives to explore revisiting their era of “breezy” dramas with a new slate of programming soon.

“The Golden Bachelor” (ABC)

ABC’s senior iteration of “The Bachelor” might have been just what the reality dating franchise needed to revitalize its audience. The series premiere of “The Golden Bachelor” courted 4.36 million viewers during its series premiere on Sept. 28 — up 45% from the most-recent premiere of “The Bachelor” and more than double the premiere viewership of “Bachelor in Paradise” Season 9, which brought in 2.08 million viewers as it debuted just after “The Golden Bachelor.”

By the conclusion of the series — which saw leading man Gerry Turner propose to Theresa Nist — the finale drew in 6.09 million total viewers, per Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, scoring the biggest audience the franchise had seen since the March 2021 season finale of “The Bachelor.” Viewership for the finale grew to 6.95 million after three days of viewing on ABC — the biggest audience for any “Bachelor” series since the March 2020 finale of Peter Weber’s season of “The Bachelor” — and scored 7.13 million viewers after a week of multi-platform viewing.

Ratings for the finale grew from a 0.80 live-plus-same day rating in the key broadcast demo among adults 18-49 to a 0.98 rating in seven-day viewing on ABC, marking the highest-rated “Bachelor” series telecast since the September 2022 finale of Rachel Recchia and Gabby Windey’s season of “The Bachelorette.”

Overall, the season averaged 4.7 million viewers over the course of the season — up from the average viewership of 3 million brought in by the most recent season of “The Bachelor” — and averaged a 0.59 rating, narrowly overtaking the average 0.58 rating for the most recent season of [The Bachelor].”

While neither a renewal for “The Golden Bachelor” nor a green light for a “Golden Bachelorette” spin-off have been announced, ABC is looking to bring back the season’s viewers during a “Golden” wedding special set to air on Jan. 4.

“Yellowstone” (CBS)

When CBS added Paramount Network hit “Yellowstone” to its fall lineup due to gaps left by the Hollywood double strike this summer, the Kevin Costner-led western drama set off a ratings boom for the network.

“Yellowstone” immediately made a splash on CBS as it debuted on Sept. 17 to 6.83 million viewers — up 141% in total viewers compared to the show’s Season 1 premiere on Paramount Network — and a 0.67 rating in the key demo. The show went on to average 4.69 million viewers and a 0.36 rating across its nine-episode telecast on the network, while exposing new CBS audiences to the Taylor Sheridan-created universe.

Of the 21.6 million viewers who tuned in to at least one episode of “Yellowstone” Season 1 on CBS, 52% had never seen a single episode of the show in the past year on either linear or streaming platforms, according to internal research provided by the network.

After wrapping up with the Season 1 finale on Oct. 22, which secured 4.52 million viewers, CBS announced it would begin airing the second season starting on Sunday, Oct. 29. It’s safe to say the ratings trend is continuing to be strong, as the network will debut Season 3 season beginning Sunday, Jan. 14.

“NCIS: Sydney” (CBS)

Another move prompted by the summer’s strikes was bringing “NCIS” spin-off “NCIS: Sydney,” which stars Olivia Swann and Todd Lasance, to CBS after it was initially set to debut solely on Paramount+.

The franchise’s first international edition debuted to 5.64 million viewers and a 0.34 rating, scoring the highest premiere viewership for a broadcast show premiering this fall. The Nov. 14 series premiere exceeded several fall series premieres, including ABC’s “The Golden Bachelor,” which brought in 4.36 million viewers during its series premiere on Sept. 28, NBC’s “The Irrational,” which debuted to an audience of 3.81 million people on Sept. 25, and Fox’s “Krapopolis,” which scored 3.6 million total viewers as it premiered on Sept. 24.

While the show is still rolling out its freshman season through the new year, it has averaged 5.1 million viewers and a rating of 0.33 over its first five episodes.

Kansas City Chiefs NFL Games

As rumors of a romance between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce heated up this fall, Kansas City Chiefs games saw an uptick in viewers as Swifties tuned in to watch the pop star in attendance. When fans spotted the “Midnights” singer at her first game of the season on Sept. 24, the Chiefs vs. Bears game scored 24.3 million viewers on Fox. The next week on Oct. 1, Swift’s attendance at the Chiefs vs. New York Jets game boosted NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” to average 27 million viewers across all platforms, making it the most-watched Sunday since Super Bowl LVII on Fox in February.

Viewership for the Oct. 2 game was up 22% over last year’s Week 4 game, and, as could be expected, viewing among young women 12-17 grew 53% as compared to the first three broadcasts of “Sunday Night Football” this season.

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