'Matlock' Wraps Season 1 as the #1 New Broadcast Series

How many viewers tuned in for the Kathy Bates legal drama season finale?

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Broadcast success stories don’t emerge too often these days since the buzzier streaming programming seems to take more of the headlines. However, there’s no downplaying the success of CBS’s Matlock, which delivered some big ratings news worth sharing as it wrapped its freshman season.

With Thursday’s two-hour finale episode, viewership was strong with 5.6 million viewers tuning in to watch. That impressive number by today’s standards is surely going to grow once the 3-day and 7-day numbers are figured in with viewership from streaming partner Paramount+.

Kathy Bates as Matty Matlock (aka Kingston) and Beau Bridges as Howard “Senior” Matkston. (Photo: CBS/Paramount)

The series that wasn’t a reboot of the Andy Griffith legal drama of the same name that ran from 1986-1995, has averaged 17 million viewers for its first season across broadcast and streaming on Paramount+, according to a CBS press release. That puts the show as the #1 new broadcast series and the #2 broadcast series overall in multi-platform viewing, according to Nielsen’s Live +35 linear and streaming.

A few more facts in the release, only looking at broadcast, Matlock delivers 9.67 million viewers (live + 7-day) and it also improved the time period by +53% when compared to last season by the now-canceled So Help Me Todd.

For more on the Matlock finale, which ranked #1 for the night and hit a season high with the 18-49 demographic, as well as what’s to come when Season 2 airs, check out my interview for Variety with the show’s showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman right here.

Until next time…