The revival of Showtime’s series hits a high with its finale, while HBO’s ‘Euphoria’ racks up strong streaming numbers.
The finale of Dexter: New Blood scored for Showtime on Sunday, registering the biggest viewership (across all platforms) for a season or series finale on the premium cabler in more than eight years.
The NFL closed out its regular season with strong ratings as well. HBO’s Euphoria returned to its biggest audience ever — nearly all of it on digital platforms.
Per Showtime, the Dexter: New Blood finale gathered 3 million viewers on Sunday, with about two thirds of that total watching via streaming or on demand platforms. The on-air debut of the finale drew a season high of 814,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. The 3 million figure is the highest for a finale of a Showtime series since season three of Homeland in 2013. For the season to date, Dexter: New Blood is averaging 8 million cross-platform viewers, making it the most watched Showtime series ever.
Following Dexter, Yellowjackets also hit a season high for Showtime with 419,000 on-air viewers for its first airing and 1.41 million across platforms (including replays).
Euphoria brought in a series high 2.4 million cross-platform viewers for its second season debut — with heavy emphasis on “cross-platform.” Nearly 90 percent of the show’s audience Sunday night watched via streaming or other digital platforms; just 254,000 of those viewers tuned into the linear HBO channel at 9 p.m.
The NFL, per usual, dominated Sunday’s broadcast slate, with afternoon doubleheaders on both CBS and Fox. Fox’s late afternoon game (19.31 million viewers) scored the biggest audience among the four windows, while the finale of Sunday Night Football on NBC in primetime averaged 17.69 million. A pair of Saturday games on ABC and ESPN averaged 19.1 million (Chiefs-Broncos) and 20.21 million (Cowboys-Eagles) viewers. For the season, the NFL is up by about 9 percent over 2020, and all six of the regular weekly broadcast windows grew year to year.
Fox’s late NFL game Sunday gave a good launchpad to second-year comedy Call Me Kat (4.96 million viewers, 1.22 rating in adults 18-49) and the series debut of Pivoting (2.43 million, 0.6).
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