CBS’ “Hollywood Squares” has debuted as the season’s most-watched new unscripted series, TheWrap can reveal exclusively.
Since the reimagined game show starring Drew Barrymore first launched on Jan. 16, “Hollywood Squares” has averaged 5.4 million viewers in primetime alone, according to Nielsen most current data, and has reached nearly 24 million unique viewers.
When adding in episodes that aired outside of primetime, the average viewership for “Hollywood Squares” reached 6.84 million across daytime and primetime, growing by 27% from its primetime average.
The show, which stars Drew Barrymore and is hosted by Nate Burleson, debuted to an audience of 5.05 million viewers as it premiered on Thursday, Jan. 16 from 10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT.
It then grew its audience to a whopping 8.36 million viewers on Sunday, Jan. 19 when it aired at 10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/7:00-8:00 p.m. PT after the AFC Divisional Playoff Game.
CBS then aired several encore episodes of “Hollywood Squares” during the daytime from Monday, Jan. 27 through Friday. Jan. 31. During its daytime airing, the show averaged 1.44 million viewers, boost the time period’s viewership by 14% when compared to this season’s episodes of “The Talk.”
The launch of “Hollywood Squares” was among the Hollywood programming that was delayed by the Los Angeles wildfires, with the premiere originally scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 9.
Inspired by first iteration of “Hollywood Squares,” which first premiered on NBC in 1965 and ran for 14 seasons, the new show challenges two contestants to a game of tic-tac-toe, but each square is occupied by a different celebrity. Barrymore, of course, is in the center square, a position that EP Jesse Collins told TheWrap he “didn’t have to convince” the star to take.