Fox’s “Prison Break” revival is the freshman show leading the pack when it comes to early audience interest, after the broadcast networks revealed their 2016-17 season schedules at the Upfronts this week.
ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and The CW presented their new slate of original programming to advertisers beginning with NBC on Sunday, and fans quickly took to YouTube to check out the new trailers.
As of Friday morning, the “Prison Break” trailer had amassed over 6.6 million views since its debut on Monday, putting it ahead of the other 35 trailers the networks released collectively. The new chapter of the Fox original series brings back stars Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell for another attempt to “engineer the series’ biggest prison break ever.”
NBC’s “This Is Us,” from writer and executive producer Dan Fogelman, follows close behind with 5.2 million watches on YouTube.
Unsurprisingly, CBS’ “Star Trek” revival is the network’s standout, with more than 2.1 million views since Wednesday.
ABC’s Kiefer Sutherland thriller, “Designated Survivor,” garnered 1.1 million views since Tuesday.
The CW got a late start, releasing its trailers on Thursday morning, but the network’s new acquisition of “Supergirl,” which will air its second season on The CW after debuting its freshman year on the network’s corporate sibling CBS, is outpacing the rest, with 110k views in under 24 hours.
Some of the nets’ new offerings aren’t faring as well in terms of early buzz.
CBS’ “Pure Genius” received the least views of all trailers from the networks with 34k on YouTube, and ABC’s “Imaginary Mary” was missing a few eyeballs compared to the network’s most-watched trailer, bringing in 84k views.
Each of NBC’s three new shows attracted over a million viewers, but the network’s comedy “The Good Place” ranked the lowest with a little over 1.2 million watches.
Fox drama “Shots Fired” came in as the network’s lowest viewed series trailer with 120k views, while CW rom-com “No Tomorrow” garnered 55k in its first day of release.
There’s still plenty of time for these new freshman faces to make an impression before fall, however — and it remains to be seen how well the early buzz translates into ratings success.
Which new network trailer is your favorite, and which show are you least interested in watching? Weigh in below.
