10 Most Watched TV Series Premieres Of All Time, Ranked

Published Nov 1, 2026, 10:00 AM EST Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock. The most-watched series premieres on television don’t always translate to the most-watched shows. From Full House to Twin Peaks, some of the highest-rated premieres have led to hit shows, but it’s usually more indicative of the popularity of the lead-in programming (which is often the Super Bowl) than the popularity of the show itself. There are a few caveats to point out before we begin the list proper. We’re only counting scripted shows, so the massive ratings of the Undercover Boss premiere won’t be discussed. SeaQuest DSV is wrongly listed on Wikipedia as one of the top-rated TV premieres, but an L.A. Times piece from the time gives a much lower figure for it. Some streaming debuts, like Wednesday on Netflix, have massive viewing figures, but they aren’t episode-specific. The biggest single-episode streaming premiere in history is House of the Dragon, which got just under 10 million views. 10 Chicken Soup 30.2 million Chicken Soup is a sitcom starring Jackie Mason and Lynn Redgrave that premiered on ABC in 1989 and ran for one season (via The New York Times). The series revolved around the interfaith relationship between a Jewish man, played by Mason, and an Irish Catholic woman, played by Redgrave. The show wrung its comic situations out of the differences in their religious beliefs. Thanks to the lead-in from the number-one primetime series, Roseanne, Chicken Soup had a massive bump in ratings upon its premiere. But the show was ultimately cancelled, because it failed to hold enough of Roseanne’s audience, and because Mason made some controversial political comments during New York’s mayoral elections. 9 Grand Slam 30.76 million Much like Chicken Soup, the ratings for Grand Slam’s series premiere were helped significantly by the show that came on before it. Whereas Chicken Soup had a lead-in of viewership from Roseanne, Grand Slam premiered after Super Bowl XXIV on CBS. But despite this lead-in, it failed to find an audience and got cancelled after just six episodes (they’d made eight, but two were left unaired). Grand Slam was a 1990 action drama centered around a pair of bounty hunters in San Diego: Dennis “Hardball” Bakelenoff, played by John Schneider, and Pedro N. Gomez, played by Paul Rodriguez. If you can’t get football fans to watch a show about bounty hunters, you deserve to get cancelled. 8 Roseanne 30.80 million Roseanne didn’t just give Chicken Soup a big enough bump in viewership to make it onto this list; it’s also on the list itself. Roseanne’s own premiere scored a few more viewers than Chicken Soup did riding on its coattails. The Conners were a huge hit with American audiences, because they reflected a blue-collar, working-class experience that resonates with millions but is rarely represented by Hollywood. Roseanne managed to maintain that success for about the next decade. It was one of the top four shows on the air for six of its nine seasons. 7 Full House 31.30 million Although it was never a critical success, Full House was always a smash hit with audiences. From season 2 on, Full House enjoyed a coveted spot in the Nielsen Top 30 ratings. Its G-rated dysfunctional family made it fun for all ages, and its central clan was dubbed the Brady Bunch of the ‘90s. Full House was a hit from the very beginning. A lot of sitcoms need a few episodes, or even a couple of seasons, to find their feet, but Full House was one of the most-watched shows on television from the jump. 6 Brothers & Sisters 31.72 million After the runaway box office returns of National Lampoon’s Animal House, every network on U.S. television was scrambling to capitalize on its success with a sitcom about a frat house. In early 1979, CBS aired Co-Ed Fever, ABC aired Delta House (an official spinoff from Animal House), and NBC aired Brothers and Sisters. Much like Grand Slam, the ratings for Brothers and Sisters’ premiere got a big boost from the Super Bowl. But, despite getting a lead-in from NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl XIII, Brothers and Sisters performed even worse than the other 1979 frat-coms, partly because they’d saturated the market, so audiences were sick of frats. 5 Twin Peaks 34.6 million Twin Peaks’ two-hour pilot episode is one of David Lynch’s greatest movies, and it was the highest-rated made-for-TV movie of the 1989-1990 season (via L.A. Times). It scored a 21.7 rating, and was watched by an impressive 34.6 million people. The Twin Peaks pilot was the seventh most-watched show of the week in Los Angeles, earning 29% of viewers (the most-watched show was Married... with Children, with 34% of viewers). Throughout its first season, Twin Peaks continued to be a ratings giant with a cult following. But in season 2, it killed the golden goose by revealing the identity of Laura Palmer’s murderer, and the viewership dropped off shortly after that. 4 Veronica's Closet 35.07 million Veronica’s Closet boasted a lot of impressive talent; it marked Kirstie Alley’s first starring role in an NBC sitcom since Cheers, and it was David Crane and Marta Kauffman’s follow-up to Friends. Alley played Veronica, the owner of a fictional New York lingerie company based on Victoria’s Secret. The show sat comfortably in the top 10 most-watched shows throughout its first two seasons. It took the #3 spot in season 1 and the #5 spot in season 2, owing mostly to its timeslot between mega-hits Seinfeld and ER as part of the “Must See TV” lineup. When NBC moved the series to a new timeslot, the ratings dipped, and the show was cancelled after three seasons. 3 A Different World 38.90 million This is why Hollywood studios are so eager to spin off their biggest hit shows. The Cosby Show is a reminder of Bill Cosby’s heinous crimes now, but in the 1980s, it was a cultural phenomenon. So, there was a built-in audience for the spinoff, A Different World, which followed Denise Huxtable off to college. Throughout its run, A Different World’s ratings would be helped by the fact that it aired between The Cosby Show and Cheers, which were the two most successful sitcoms on TV back then. But the series itself was hailed by critics and beloved by audiences, so it earned some of that success on its own, too. 2 Dolly 39.47 million In 1987, the late, great Dolly Parton starred in a variety show, appropriately titled Dolly. With a whopping 39.47 million viewers, Dolly’s first episode scored one of the all-time highest ratings for a series premiere on network television (via TVLine). However, while the first few episodes maintained those high ratings, the viewership started to decline shortly thereafter. The network changed up the format more than once and tried various marketing tricks to drum up more interest in the show, but the ratings never improved. Parton used her creative control to ditch the more expensive segments and go for more of a down-to-Earth approach, but it was too late, and the audience had already tuned out for good. 1 The Last Precinct 39.7 million Stephen J. Cannell is one of the most prolific creators in TV history, but he only ever created one sitcom. The Last Precinct is a police procedural blending comedy and drama, starring Adam West as Captain Rick Wright, the put-upon leader of a ragtag group of police academy rejects. This was yet another series premiere that got a big bump from the Super Bowl. It premiered on NBC after Super Bowl XX in 1986, but after it started airing weekly episodes in April, it was cancelled within two months. A lot of the entries on this list speak more to the popularity of football in the United States than the popularity of any of the specific shows. Having said that, an Adam West cop sitcom sounds like it deserved to be a hit. Sources: The New York Times, L.A. Times, TVLine