‘Walker’ Debut Gives The CW Its Best Thursday Viewership Since 2018

The CW’s series premiere of Walker drew a 0.4 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic and 2.43 million viewers Thursday, sparking the network’s most watched Thursday primetime since 2018.

The series, which starts Supernatural alum Jared Padalecki in a revival of the Chuck Norris-starring CBS action drama that ran from 1993-2001, debuted with the most watched telecast in the 8 p.m. Thursday time slot for CW since December 2016 (a DC’s Legends of Tomorrow episode). Last night, Walker led into the Season 3 bow of Legacies (0.2, 717K), which grew in viewers from last year’s finale per Nielsen’s Live+Same Day fast affiliates.

ABC won the night in both the demo and viewers with its game show lineup of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune (0.8, 6.09M), which saw a three-tenths dip from last week, followed by The Chase (0.7, 4.31M) and The Hustler (0.5, 2.66M), both off a tenth.

CBS was back with fresh episodes and had the night’s most watched show in Young Sheldon (0.8, 7.15M) which tied Wheel in the demo. B Positive (0.6, 5.04M), Mom (0.6, 4.92M) and The Unicorn (0.4, 3.45M) paved the way for Star Trek: Discovery (0.2, 1.75M), which bumped up a tenth with the original lead-ins.

On Fox, Hell’s Kitchen (0.7, 2.47M) and rookie Call Me Kat (0.5, 2.45M) were steady with last week, while Last Man Standing (0.4, 2.54M) dipped a tenth. NBC’s own rookie, Mr. Mayor (0.5, 3.09M), was also even, leading into a dipping Superstore (0.4, 2.16M). Law & Order: SVU (0.6, 3.63M) was even with last week and Dateline (0.3, 3.00M) was down a tenth.