Original Coverage & Source Attribution: www.hollywoodreporter.com
Cupertino and Line of Fire are very different shows on screen, but their ratings profiles early in the season are very similar.
Both shows draw about 3 million viewers for their initial airings (3.03 million for Cupertino’s first two episodes on CBS, 2.98 million over three for Line of Fire on NBC). That’s not bad for a 10 p.m. network show — it tends to be the least watched hour of primetime — but a few other series that air in that hour are ahead of them.
Cupertino and Line of Fire are also picking up a lot of viewing — most of their seven-day totals, in fact — after those initial airings. The 2026-27 TV season is just a month old, so these are necessarily small sample sizes. But if these early patterns hold up, Cupertino and Line of Fire are poised to draw audiences well above their same-day audiences.
CBS’ two other rookies, NCIS: New York and Eternally Yours, also had good starts, with the former’s Oct. 6 series premiere ranking sixth among all network shows (excluding live sports) after a week of cross-platform viewing. The latest entry in the NCIS franchise grew to 10.25 million viewers over a week, according to Nielsen’s multi-platform ratings. That’s up from 5.62 million same-day viewers — a growth of 82 percent.
Of the 4.63 million additional viewers for NCIS: New York, 2.45 million came via streaming (about 24 percent of the all-in, seven-day total) and 2.18 million via DVR.
Cupertino’s Oct. 8 premiere more than doubled after a week, going from 3.19 million on-air viewers to 7.17 million. The majority (2.18 million) of its after-air viewers came to the show via DVR, while an additional 1.8 million streamed the premiere in seven days.
Through its first three episodes, Line of Fire is averaging 6.9 million cross-platform viewers over a week, also more than doubling its initial audience (2.98 million). Its delayed viewing also tilts a little toward DVR playback (2.08 million viewers) vs. streaming (1.84 million). In announcing a full-season order for the show on Thursday, NBC also noted that the Sept. 21 premiere has grown to 14 million viewers over a month’s time.
Eternally Yours, a comedy about a family of vampires, also debuted Oct. 8. It had 4.12 million same-day viewers and 6.94 million after seven days, up 68 percent. About 1.58 million of those were streaming viewers, with 1.24 million coming from DVR playback.
Here’s how the four new scripted shows that have premiered so far compare (a fifth, NBC’s comedy Newlyweds, debuts Friday). All figures are through Oct. 11.
