‘High Potential’ & ‘Shifting Gears’ Land Highest Ratings for New Shows in the 2024-2025 TV Season
ABC is staying on top, it seems, as Nielsen’s ratings for the September to May broadcast season covering 2024-2025 reveal the network helms the top five broadcast series, including the highest ratings for new comedies and dramas with Shifting Gears and High Potential.
Among the top five broadcast shows among Adults 18-49 in multiplatform rankings were High Potential with a 3.85 rating, Abbott Elementary with a 3.25 rating, The Rookie with 2.49 rating, Shifting Gears with a 2.39 rating, and 9-1-1 with a 2.38 rating.
Overall, the network owned seven of the top 20 shows among the demo, with the addition of Will Trent and Grey’s Anatomy, coming in with ratings of 1.64 and 1.62, respectively. Overall, ABC has the most highly-rated shows, followed by CBS with six, Fox with four, and NBC with three.
High Potential came in at number one in the new drama category, the Kaitlin Olson-led series more than doubling its closest new competitive drama, CBS’s popular Matlock, starring Kathy Bates, which ranks with a 1.75 rating. Meanwhile, Shifting Gears outpaced its closest competitor, CBS’s Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, which came in at a 1.79 rating.
Disney / Gilles Mingasson
ABC also claimed the top spot for a returning drama with The Rookie, beating CBS’s Tracker, which came in with a 2.15 rating. As for the top returning comedy, Abbott remains a favorite, edging out CBS’s other popular comedy, Ghosts.
In other words, ABC is keeping a hold on the lead, and such was the case with High Potential, which stood as the number one drama among total viewers, with 16.41 million, and number one new show among adults 18-49. The show’s streaming performance on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ also more than doubled the next highest competitive drama, Tracker.
The show grew by over 50 percent in Multiplatform+7 ratings through 35 days of viewing, and for the season, including encores, the show logged early 13 billion minutes-watched on linear and streaming platforms.
What do you think of these rating results? Weigh in on the comments section below, and stay tuned to find out which shows own the field as we head into the 2025-2026 season.
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O
Like all of those shows!
Do you only poll 18-49 y/o people.
How about seniors?
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G
Agree we are in our sixties we watch evening TV,, Matlock, George and Mandy, Rookie,, tired of Reality shows.. the younger age brackets watch a lot of streaming.. we record many shows as well to avoid the endless commercials.
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G
I love Tracker and Will Trent
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Why in the world TV stations and networks continue to pay Nielsen ratings LOL to tell them what we're interested in is beyond me. Just so everyone is aware if the cable companies were allowed by FCC law with some simple law updates to provide watch time and viewing ratings you wouldn't need Nielsen ratings but God forbid we do that because that makes sense. Furthermore, there is no way fewer people were watching will Trent than say for example the rookie or Highest Potential because generally that evening when those shows are on people are watching that in the entire section or they are watching via dvr. Nielsen ratings is a has been yesteryear system and it needs to be eliminated and why in the world do people keep having fits when they end shows we like? Because they pay attention to falsified ratings because they only ask a small population what they watched. Well news flash ask the cable companies that would give you some real data. Wake up
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P
I think Tracker and Will Trent are very high quality shows. Great stories and great actors. Two shows that are different and refreshing. Abbot Elementary is another my favorite show. as well as FBI (s). Others are just fluff in my opinion. ☺☺. To each his own, however.
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P
So, we are talking demo and not total viewers?
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Tracker is one of our favorites we like Rookie but take Tracker of Rookie if we had to pick one. How does Shifting gears beat George and Mandy. Shifting gears was not at all funny. How bout giving Tim Allen a girl friend or wife would be much better, or bring his wife he had on his previous sit com on as his gf, they had good chemistry. George and Mandy is so much better and funny,, the parents and other characters..
Also Matlock is another favorite.. hope these shows stay on for a while. Everything I like gets cancelled lol.
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