“Tracker kicked off our premiere week with a ratings bang and has kept the momentum going,” CBS Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach said in a statement Monday. “We knew we had something special when we saw the very first cut of the series and the overwhelming audience response confirms it. We couldn’t be more grateful to Justin [Hartley], the talented cast, the incredible writing and producing teams and our partners at 20th Television for such compelling episodes. And, of course, we’re also so thankful to the millions of viewers tuning in each week.”
Tracker enjoyed a significant kick-off leading out of this year’s Super Bowl, with 18.4 million total viewers (in Live+Same Day). After its first regularly scheduled Sunday outing retained 6.9 million viewers, the series has grown its audience every week since, most recently delivering 7.4 million viewers.
With Live+7 playback (and that post-Super Bowl showcase) factored in, Tracker thus far is averaging 10.4 million viewers, closely trailing only CBS’ own NCIS (10.48 mil) in that measure, out of all entertainment programs that have aired this broadcast-TV season.
CBS notes that Tracker currently stands as the most-watched new show on TV since Young Sheldon (which in 2017-18 averaged 16.49 mil viewers) and is the most-watched new drama since Empire (which in 2014-15 averaged 17.33 mil viewers).
The one-hour drama — which is loosely based on the Jeffrey Deaver novel “The Never Game” — casts the This Is Us vet as Colter Shaw, a lone-wolf survivalist who roams the country and uses his expert tracking skills to help private citizens and law enforcement solve all manner of mysteries.
Rounding out the procedural’s ensemble are Fiona Rene as Reenie Greene, Robin Weigert as Teddi Bruin, Abby McEnany as Velma Bruin and Eric Graise as Bob Exley. Wendy Crewson recurs as Colter’s mother Mary.
