“Matlock” closed out its first season with an impressive audience, rounding out 2024-25 as broadcast’s most-watched new series.
The two-hour Season 1 finale, which aired from 9-11 p.m. ET on Thursday, scored 5.6 million viewers on CBS, according to Nielsen live-plus-same day figures, becoming the night’s most-watched program across broadcast.
When including viewership from the finale, the Kathy Bates-led series ranks as the No. 1 new broadcast series and No. 2 broadcast series. That ranking remained consistent in delayed viewing for “Matlock” from over a month of viewing, with the show averaging 17 million viewers across broadcast and streaming, according to Nielsen-live-plus-35-day figures and streaming data.
On broadcast alone, “Matlock” has averaged 9.67 million viewers after a week of viewing, according to Nielsen-live-plus-seven-day numbers through April 3, boosting it to win the 9 p.m. hour. When compared to the timeslot last season, CBS has seen a 53% uptick in viewership thanks to “Matlock.”
Viewership for the Season 1 finale was slightly down from the impressive 7.73 million live-plus-same-day viewers brought in by the “Matlock” series premiere in September, whose special Sunday airing ranked as CBS’ most-watched non-Super Bowl premiere in over five years at the time. The premiere then grew 38% to reach 10.67 million viewers in three days of multiplatform viewing.
“Matlock” was swiftly renewed for a second season after just two episodes had aired.
After the penultimate episode of the season saw Bates’ Madeline Matlock finally come clear to Olympia (Skye P. Marshall) about her mission to expose Jacobson Moore for concealing a study that would’ve taken opioids off the market years earlier — an investigation near and dear to Matty after her daughter died from opioid addiction. While Olympia thought she cleared Julian’s name, a discovery in the final moments of the finale plunge Olympia into a crisis of morality.
“She and Matty could be swimming in the same direction, or they could be swimming against each other, and that’s what we’re investigating at the beginning of the same at the second season,” creator Jennie Snyder Urman told TheWrap. “What I can say is that the mystery that opens up … is connected to the first, but it takes us in new directions in the law firm in interesting ways, and we will pose another set of questions that we will answer by the end.”
Season 1 of “Matlock” is available to stream on Paramount+.
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