THE NUMBERS

Despite holding the record for the latest start time for a post-Super Bowl program ever, starting at 11:14 p.m. ET, the series premiere of CBS’ “Tracker” amassed 18.4 million viewers on Sunday, February 11, and was the most watched primetime entertainment program since the 2021 post-Super Bowl premiere of “The Equalizer,” also on CBS.

After three days of playback (Live+3) and the upcoming encore airing of the series premiere on Thursday, February 15 (10:00-11:00 PM ET/PT), “Tracker” is projected to exceed 25 million viewers or more by the end of the week.

Compared to last year’s post-Super Bowl airing of “Next Level Chef” on FOX (15.85 million viewers on February 12, 2023), the new drama series starring Justin Hartley (“The Young and the Restless,” “Passions”) was up +16% among Total Viewers and delivered more viewers than any primetime entertainment program this season. Additionally, “Tracker” amassed over 130 million potential social media impressions.*

Immediately after “Tracker” and the local news on CBS affiliates, the network returned with “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” (starting at 12:50 a.m. ET/9:50 p.m. PT), which averaged 3.74 million viewers and was the show’s largest Live+Same Day audience since the post-Super Bowl broadcast on February 7, 2021 at 12:14 a.m ET/9:14 p.m. PT. 

With a start time of 12:50 a.m. ET, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” now marks the latest start time for a post-Super Bowl late-night show. Following the Stephen Colbert-hosted talk show was the new late-night talker “After Midnight” hosted by Taylor Tomlinson. Guests for the show included Wayne Brady, Maria Bamford and Kevin Smith. “After Midnight,” which premiered just last month, scored its most-watched episode with 2.03 million viewers.

CBS’ broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday became the most-watched telecast in history across all platforms, including the CBS Television Network, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, Univision, and CBS Sports, Univision, and NFL digital properties, including NFL+, topping last year’s game with 123.4 million viewers tuning in across all platforms, up +7% vs. last year’s Super Bowl, which held the previous record (115.1 million).

On CBS alone, 120 million viewers watched the game, marking the largest audience ever for a single network and capped off an impressive record-setting season for CBS Sports. During the 2023-2024 season, “The NFL ON CBS” scored its most-watched regular season since the NFL returned to CBS in 1998 and posted the network’s best postseason viewership since 1998.

At press time, streaming data was not yet available for “Tracker,” “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “After Midnight.”

Note: *Potential impressions are the estimated number of people who might have viewed posts related to this topic. NetBase calculates potential impressions based on followers/fans of original posts and followers/fans of engagements.

“Tracker” will move to its regular timeslot with all-new episodes beginning Sunday, February 18 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

Check out the latest trailer for the show above.