10 Most Watched and TV Shows In The US over the past 12 months

From CBS’ “NCIS” to Fox’s “Duncanville,” here are the top 10 broadcast TV shows this past year.

TV ratings are still proving strong despite social media and video sites dominating bandwidth with a number of the below highest watcg TV series being renewed year on year.

CBS juggernaut “NCIS” was the most-watched show on broadcast (when including all viewers two years of age and older, with one week of delayed-viewing counted), according to Nielsen statistics. (“NCIS” used to be the top show on all of linear television; that is, until Paramount Network’s “Yellowstone” moseyed into these here parts.) The CBS procedural has been the best on broadcast for four years running and 12 of the last 13 seasons (NBC’s “This Is Us” triumphed in 2017-18). CBS’ “FBI” was the only other entertainment program on broadcast television to average north of 10 million viewers per episode this season.

We thoughts best to ignore sports and news programming as topical; otherwise the majority of the top 10 list would be sport and wars. The only potential news-programming victim here is “60 Minutes,” the long-running CBS newsmagazine series that can really go either way in terms of genre. We’re not giving CBS the short end of the stick, though: The most-watched broadcast channel occupies 70 percent of our top 10

Focusing on total viewers is good in some ways and less-good in others. It disproportionately rewards channels and shows that cater to older viewers (read: CBS and procedurals). Perfectly, the only three non-CBS series in the top 10 this season were Dick Wolf’s three “Chicago” shows on NBC. Crossing nets, Wolf the super-producer accounts for half of the series on this list: the entirety of that “Chicago” universe and the two qualifying “FBI” series.

Find the top 10 below, of which eight series are dramas and two are comedies. One, CBS’ “Ghosts,” is a freshman show. As you might imagine, each of these 10 shows have been renewed.

Most-Watched Broadcast Series, 2021-22 Season

1. “NCIS” (CBS): 10.974 million viewers
2. “FBI” (CBS): 10.354 million viewers
3. “Chicago Fire” (NBC): 9.917 million viewers
4. “Blue Bloods” (CBS): 9.608 million viewers
5. “The Equalizer” (CBS): 9.301 million viewers
6. “Chicago PD” (NBC): 9.254 million viewers
7. “Young Sheldon” (CBS): 9.222 million viewers
8. “Chicago Med” (NBC): 9.203 million viewers
9. “FBI: Most Wanted” (CBS): 8.846 million viewers
10. “Ghosts” (CBS): 8.409 million viewers

While NBC executives will be glad to see “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago PD,” and “Chicago Med” on our list, they may not be thrilled with us calling September to May the “TV season” in 2022. Traditionally, Nielsen separated out the summer — and still does, in many ways — as the warm-weather months were nothing but reruns.

These days, networks program a mix of originals and repeats. No one does that better than NBC, which prefers a September-to-September approach to season-long measurement. It is possible that a good performance from the summer’s regular top show, “America’s Got Talent,” would kick “Ghosts” off this list (and potentially even move a few other series down). “AGT” averaged 8.7 million viewers on Tuesdays last summer, 9.0 million in Summer 2020, and 11.9 million in the summer before the Covid pandemic stole much of the performance-competition series’ magic.