The success of the new US drama The Good Doctor on Seven this week set a recent ratings high for US drama series in Australia.
MORE: Doctober! Medical magicians flood the small screen as audiences visit surgeries
It was not that long ago that key US dramas were pulling in metro audiences of 2m or more, while a crowd of 1m was almost a fail.
This week’s debut of The Good Doctor had a metro audience of 1.06m to easily win the night for Seven and give the network its best Tuesday audience since April.
The Good Doctor audience was the biggest audience for a US drama launch since Gotham did 1.24m on Nine in October 2014. Gotham didn’t hang around forever though – by episode five the audience numbers had dropped to under half a million. The series is still in production in the US with close to 80 episodes so far.
A bigger hit earlier in 2014 though was the launch of Resurrection on Seven with 1.90m tuning in. The drama series lasted two seasons until it was cancelled by the US network that commissioned it – ABC.
Revenge was another US drama hit for Seven, launching with 2.06m in February 2012. The audiences, however, steadily declined over the four seasons, and in the last half of the last season the metro average was around 500,000.
TEN has had more than its share of US drama hits over the years. The Good Wife started well for TEN with 1.40m on debut in February 2010, but the numbers here steadily declined over the years to the point where it was averaging under 400,000 near the end of its life.
NCIS has been a longtime Tuesday night regular for TEN, but you need to trawl back through the records until March 2012 to find the last episode to crack 1m – and it only did it the once that year too.