‘High Potential’ Narrowly Beats ‘Tracker’ To Become the Most-Watched Show of 2025

A champion has emerged in Nielsen’s 2025 broadcast television ratings, and it was a squeaker. Despite a strong effort from the viewership juggernaut that has been Tracker at CBS, Kaitlin Olson‘s superintelligent sleuth, Morgan Gillory, just barely took the crown, with High Potential racking up an impressive 16.5 million average viewers. The two series ended in a virtual tie for the year, depending on the episodes included to calculate the final total, though ratings ultimately gave the ABC show a slight edge of just point one million over Colter Shaw’s (Justin Hartley) 16.4 million, even if CBS’s measure had the numbers reversed. No matter how the results are broken down, though, it’s clear that both programs dominated the competition this year in both linear and multiplatform numbers, making a statement on behalf of broadcast television.

The difference for High Potential ultimately came down to streaming. While Tracker had the clear advantage on the linear front, with 11 million viewers tuning in on CBS compared to High Potential‘s 8.6 million, the Drew Goddard-created series made up that ground and then some with 7.9 million tuning in on streaming compared to 5.4 million. Both results were calculated using linear+streaming content ratings data based on 35 days of viewing to give the best impression of how many people were tuning in. It is worth noting, though, that High Potential‘s final tally was based on 12 episodes that aired in the time frame Nielsen and the networks looked at, while Tracker debuted 14 episodes in the same span. Considering how new the Olson-led hit was, wrapping up its debut season at the start of the year before beginning its hotly anticipated Season 2 in September, it’s still no small feat to dethrone what has been the unshakable king of broadcast television of late. No show came particularly close to matching their might, with the Kathy Bates-led Matlock coming in third with 13.2 million.

High Potential‘s win was an especially big deal for ABC because it overcame a wall of four CBS shows in the top five, also including Ghosts and Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage. People of literally ages were watching Morgan and Karadec (Daniel Sunjata) solve crimes, too. The show paced all other broadcast programs in the coveted 18-49 demographic and ranked second on the charts for adults aged 18–34, teens aged 12–17, and, interestingly, kids aged 2–11. Critics and audiences alike have fallen in love with the show’s mix of mystery, comedy, and character drama surrounding Olson as the unconventially brilliant single mom, if the respective 98% and 78% scores overall on Rotten Tomatoes are any indication.

What Is Happening in ‘High Potential’ Season 2?

After Morgan earned her place as a full-fledged member of the LAPD team in Season 1, High Potential‘s return sees her going toe-to-toe with The Game Maker (David Giuntoli). The show’s debut run ended with a tease that her battle of wits against the killer was going to get far more personal now that he knew where both she and her children lived. In between the case of the week structure, a new lead was set up regarding Morgan’s first husband, Roman, who was revealed to still be alive after all. It ultimately didn’t take long to best the big bad, though the midseason finale set up a dark, exciting twist to the search for Roman revolving around his recovered backpack. When the series returns next year, Morgan, Karradec, Selena Soto (Judy Reyes), Oz (Deniz Akdeniz), Daphne (Javicia Leslie), and the rest have a few enigmatic new threats looming on the horizon to deal with as they unravel the case to, hopefully, find their missing man.

High Potential Season 2 returns to ABC on January 6. Stay tuned here at Collider for more once Morgan gets back on the case.