Author: rb809rb

The final numbers are in for fall, and CBS’ “Tracker” continues its winning streak — leading the Eye’s dominance among broadcast networks when both linear and 35 days of streaming viewership of non-sports series fare is tallied.

Of course, add the streamers to the mix, and the final season of “Stranger Things” was no match for the competition: The Netflix series dominated the fall, with an average of 32.86 million viewers. That was followed by Netflix’s blockbuster docuseries “Sean Combs: The Reckoning” (20.64 million) and Paramount+’s surging “Landman” (19.64 million). “Tracker” was next, with 16.65 million — making it tops among broadcast series — followed closely by ABC’s “High Potential” (16.07 million).

CBS, which returns its schedule with new originals this week (now that the Olympics competition has wrapped on NBC), led the fall top ten among broadcast with eight shows (“Tracker,” “Matlock,” “Sheriff Country,” “Ghosts,” “60 Minutes,” “Boston Blue,” “NCIS,” “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage”) — with “Sheriff Country” and “Boston Blue” as the fall’s top two most-watched new series in broadcast. The Eye net also boasted nine of the top 20 series among both linear and streaming.

Streaming is continuing to help expand eyeballs for broadcast fare: “Tracker,” for example, averaged 11.4 million viewers on linear, then another 5.2 million in streaming. “High Potential” was nearly a 50/50 split: 8.3 million viewers on linear, and 7.8 million on streaming. “Abbott Elementary” actually attracts more viewers in streaming on Hulu (4.4 million) than on ABC linear (3.8 million).

These lists don’t include sports, of course, which would add even more broadcast heft to the rankers. But even without sports, the broadcast networks did quite well in the fall. Now, on to midseason — where several additional high performers, like ABC’s “Will Trent” and “The Rookie,” will be added to the mix too.

Here are the fall 2025 rankers:

Fall 2025 Multiplatform 35-Day Ranker: Broadcast+Streaming Originals

Rank	Title (Network/SVOD)	Total 35-Day Viewing
1.	Stranger Things (Netflix)	32.86 million
2.	Sean Combs: The Reckoning (Netflix)	20.64 million
3.	Landman (Paramount+)	19.64 million
4.	Tracker (CBS)	16.65 million
5.	High Potential (ABC)	16.07 million
6.	Fallout (Prime Video)	14.85 million
7.	Monster: The Ed Gein Story (Netflix)	13.36 million
8.	The Beast in Me (Netflix)	12.74 million
9.	Matlock (CBS)	12.21 million
10.	Sheriff Country (CBS)	11.09 million
11.	Ghosts (CBS)	10.59 million
12.	60 Minutes (CBS)	10.27 million
13.	Boston Blue (CBS)	10.26 million
14.	NCIS (CBS)	10.12 million
15.	Chicago Fire (NBC)	10.07 million
16.	Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage (CBS)	9.89 million
17.	Dancing With the Stars (ABC)	9.81 million
18.	Wayward (Netflix)	9.74 million
19.	Elsbeth (CBS)	9.50 million
20.	Nobody Wants This (Netflix)	9.40 million

Source: Source: Nielsen Panel+ Big Data P2+ Prime AA, L+35, 9/14/2025-1/04/2026 + Nielsen SCR, 35-Day Total Flight for streaming. Does not include specials, finales, or sports that fall within FSD. Does not include series or specials with less than 4 telecasts.

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Fall 2025 Multiplatform 35-Day Ranker: Broadcast Originals

Rank	Title (Network)	Broadcast+Streaming Average Viewers Per Episode
1.	Tracker (CBS)	16.7 million
2.	High Potential (ABC)	16.1 million
3.	Matlock (CBS)	12.2 million
4.	Sheriff Country (CBS)	11.1 million
5.	Ghosts (CBS)	10.6 million
6.	60 Minutes (CBS)	10.3 million
tie	Boston Blue (CBS)	10.3 million
8.	NCIS (CBS)	10.1 million
tie	Chicago Fire (NBC)	10.1 million
10.	Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage (CBS)	9.9 million
11.	Dancing With the Stars (ABC)	9.8 million
12.	Elsbeth (CBS)	9.5 million
13.	9-1-1 (ABC)	9.3 million
tie	Best Medicine (Fox)	9.3 million
tie	Chicago Med (NBC)	9.3 million
tie	Chicago PD (NBC)	9.7 million
17.	Law & Order: SVU (NBC)	8.8 million
tie	FBI (CBS)	8.8 million
19.	9-1-1: Nashville (ABC)	8.5 million
20.	Abbott Elementary (ABC)	8.3 million

Source: Source: Nielsen Panel+ Big Data P2+ Prime AA, L+35, 9/14/2025-1/04/2026 + Nielsen SCR, 35-Day Total Flight for streaming.

Taylor Swift fans kept “hope-alite” alive that “Opalite” would become her 14th No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, even though it faced some competitive headwinds in reaching the summit. The infectious bop came through, reaching the top in this, its 20th week on the chart, and moving Swift just a little bit closer to an all-time record.

Thirteen has traditionally been Swift’s lucky number, but so is 14. (And so will be 15, and so on.) With 14 career No. 1s, she now ties Rihanna for the most Hot 100 leaders in the history of the chart. Who’s ahead of her? Only the Beatles, with 20 No. 1s, and Mariah Carey, with 19 — neither of those presenting anything like an insurmountable mark for someone as prolific as Swift.

“Opalite” follows “The Fate of Ophelia” as her second No. 1 from the album “The Life of a Showgirl.” “Ophelia” spent 10 weeks at No. 1. “Opalite” previously debuted at No. 2, during the week of the album’s release, and was always destined to register as the album’s second-most-popular track. Since then, it had spent several weeks in the top 10 and was a mainstay of the top 20, based primarily on streaming demand. But it was not officially released as a single until the music video dropped on Feb. 6.

Last week would have seemed like a prime time for “Opalite” to top the chart, based on all those immediate video streams. But it was kept out of a top position by the huge resurgence of Bad Bunny’s catalog following his Super Bowl halftime appearance, among other factors. Perhaps seeing the Bad Bunny tsunami coming during that time frame, the biggest push for singles sales was held back a week and came during this latest chart period.

Ubiquitous for four months now among fans, the song had already peaked some time ago on Billboard’s streaming chart; it falls to No. 17 on that register this week. So making it to No. 1 on the Hot 100 this week was much more reliant on increased radio play as well as singles sales.

The radio airplay impressions for “Opalite” were up 17% this week, to 58.9 million, after already taking a leap last week. The most substantial gain, though, was in sales. The single sold 168,00 copies this week, up 2,290%. Of those 168,000, Billboard and Luminate report, 144,000 were physical copies, representing a mix of one vinyl and six CD variants. Some of those editions had gone on sale in January but did not count toward her tally till they shipped during this mid-February time frame.

The sales tally for the single was impressive enough that Billboard reported it was the highly weekly sales for any song since Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” went viral and sold 175,000 downloads in a single week in August 2023.

The number of streams for “Opalite” in this time frame was 11.4 million, down 20% from the week before.

Swift probably would have had an easier path to hitting No. 1 a week earlier if Billboard had not recently instituted a rule change. The publication altered its playbook so that free YouTube streams no longer count in the calculation of a hit. That was presumably one reason why Swift gave Apple Music and Spotify Premium a two-day exclusive on the “Opalite” video, to redirect fans to paid services whose totals still count toward the charts. Regardless, it all worked out for her, even if there was a week of delayed gratification for Swifties to enjoy their heroine getting her latest chart triumph.

Nashville has a very strong presence at the top of the Hot 100 this week, if you count Swift, and you should, as a longtime mainstay and still a part-time resident. Following the former country queen at No. 1 is current country star Ella Langley at No. 2, as her smash “Choosin’ Texas” — which recently peaked at the top of the chart, then took a dip — rose two spots from its No. 4 position last week.

Following those two songs are Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need” at No. 3, and Bad Bunny’s “DtMF” (last week’s leader) dipping a few spots to No. 4. Bad Bunny also has two other songs remaining in the top 10 for a total of three, after landing four there last week. “Tití Me Preguntó” is at No. 7 and “Baile Inolvidable” is at No. 10. 

The No. 5 song is Alex Warren’s “Ordinary,” followed by “Golden” at No. 7 and Swift’s “Ophelia” still affording her a second spot in the top 10 at No. 8.

Over on the Billboard 200 album chart, Bad Bunny was a holdover at No. 1 with “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,” the second consecutive and fifth nonconsecutive time that album reached the top.

There were two new entries in the top 10, both from artists debuting more modestly with their current projects than they did with their previous albums.

Brent Faiyaz debuted at No. 6 with “Icon,” collecting 58,000 equivalent album units. His previous album, 2022’s “Wasteland,” bowed at No. 2 with 88,000 as its first-week tally.

Charli xcx‘s soundtrack album for “Wuthering Heights” entered at No. 8, with 51,000 units. Even with an association with a hit movie, this more eclectic project was not exepected to match debut numbers for her last album, the culturally phenomenal “Brat,” which bowed at No. 3 in 2024 with 77,000 units.

The truth is right here: Ryan Coogler‘s reboot of “The X-Files” is officially moving forward with a pilot order at Hulu.

In addition, Danielle Deadwyler is officially set to play one of the lead roles in the pilot, while the other lead role has yet to be cast. The official logline for the pilot states, “Two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.”

Coogler will write, direct, and executive produce the pilot under his Proximity Media banner. Sev Ohanian and Zinzi Coogler of Proximity will also executive produce along with original “X-Files” creator Chris Carter. Simone Harris of Proximity will co-executive produce. The pilot hails from Onyx Collective and 20th Television. Coogler and Proximity are currently under a TV overall deal with Disney.

News of Coogler’s take on the beloved sci-fi procedural first emerged in 2023, when Carter revealed that Coogler had contacted him about rebooting the series with a diverse cast. There has been no official news on the project since, though Coogler has teased work on the series in interviews since.

“Like my relationship with ‘Rocky’ with my dad, ‘The X-Files’ is one of those things with my mom,” Coogler told Variety in October 2025. “My mom means the world to me…so this is a big one for me. I want to do right by her and the fans. My mom has read some of the stuff I wrote for it. She’s fired up.”

This will be the first ever reboot of “The X-Files” but not the first time that the show has returned since it originally went off the air in 2001 after nine seasons. Fox revived the series for two more seasons in 2016 and 2018 with Carter and original series stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny returning in their roles as Dr. Dana Scully and Fox Mulder. There have also been two “X-Files” movies — 1998’s “The X-Files,” followed by “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” in 2008.

At this time, neither Anderson nor Duchovny are attached to Coogler’s pilot.

Deadwyler is best known for her roles in films like “The Harder They Fall,” “Till,” and “Carry-On.” She has also played memorable parts in shows like “Atlanta,” “The Bear,” and “Station Eleven,” with appearances in other series like “P-Valley,” “From Scratch,” and “Greenleaf.”

Coogler has established himself as one of the most in-demand and celebrated filmmakers of his time. He is currently making the awards show rounds with “Sinners,” which he wrote, directed, and produced. The film recently set a new Oscars record with 16 nominations, the most for any single film in one year. Coogler is up for best director and best original screenplay, while the film itself is up for best picture. Coogler most recently made history by becoming the first Black person to win a BAFTA Award for best original screenplay.

Coogler’s other film credits the two “Black Panther” films for Marvel, the “Creed” franchise, and “Fruitvale Station.” Coogler was also a producer on the Oscar-winning film “Judas and the Black Messiah.”

Coogler is repped by WME, M88, The Lede Company, and Cohen & Gardner. Deadwyler is repped by Paradigm Talent Agency, Play Management, and Ziffren Brittenham. Carter is repped by CAA and Gang Tyre.

The iconic orc statue that lives at the center of Blizzard Entertainment’s Irvine campus is standing a little taller these days as the brand behind “World of Warcraft,” “Diablo,” “Hearthstone” and “Overwatch” builds to its 35th anniversary.

Sitting in her office above the Microsoft-owned brand’s campus on Jan. 20, Blizzard Entertainment president Johanna Faries told Variety that the slew of announcements that would be revealed the following week in Blizzard’s big “Showcase” presentations were “the amalgamation of so much hard work and collaboration across everyone at Blizzard.” “And to me, that, in and of itself, is such a point of pride,” Faries said.

It’s a moment of hard-fought-for pride for Blizzard, a video game publisher that’s managed to maintain its beloved status with exuberant fans despite multiple controversial changes in leadership, a $35 million settlement over misconduct accusations, and a reputation for a “frat boy” workplace culture.

“The way that the game teams have come together to ladder up into something bigger that reflects the power of Blizzard — it’s easy to say, it’s incredibly hard to do,” said Faries, who joined Blizzard as president in 2024, following two years as general manager of the “Call of Duty” franchise at sister company Activision and more than 10 years in business and marketing exec roles at the NFL. “And the way that the simple symphony orchestra that is Blizzard has come together, it’s a showcase of an immense amount of work, an immense amount of creative collaboration. And it just makes me so excited to come to work every day, to be able to do this together in that way.”

But the major news revealed out of Blizzard’s showcase presentations — including the rebranding of “Overwatch 2” to “Overwatch” as it debuts a year-long narrative arc, “World of Warcraft’s” deep expansion into in-game housing, “Diablo’s” 30th-anniversary expansion plans — is not the peak of the anniversary celebration, but the start of the climb. What Faries and her team are really building toward is the triumphant return for BlizzCon this September, which will mark the first version of the event under Microsoft ownership after more than two years off.

“I’ve heard this from many of the teams that what we’re going to announce across ‘WoW,’ ‘Diablo,’ ‘Overwatch,’ even ‘Hearthstone’ and many others, just in this moment in time for Showcase, much of that would have been what we would have put on the main stage as an announcement at BlizzCon, at something of that caliber,” Faries said. “So I’m hopeful that not only do we drum up an enormous amount of excitement in the here and now, but that also signals how confident we are in the belief that 2026 represents a huge, banner year for Blizzard — because Blizzcon only has more behind the curtain that we’re excited to share. So hopefully players really see that and recognize, wow, if Blizzard’s coming this big in this moment of time, imagine what they might be also staging for us in September.”

While Faries hypes up just how much she’s not overhyping BlizzCon 2026, she’s also focused on what comes after that big in-person experience and what the next 35 years are supposed to look like. A big part of that is decided on the ground in Irvine, where Blizzard is cultivating its existing, homegrown talent. It’s a mission Faries is charged with just as longtime Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer exits and CoreAI exec Asha Sharma takes over and concerns about consistency arise.

“If you go into my office and look at the art on the walls, you’ll see how much it helps that we have real icons and leaders in the artist community,” Faries said. “We have, I would argue, the greatest artists in all of gaming and entertainment. And so their network gives us the leg up. They’re constantly thinking about, how do we recruit? How do we train up upcoming talent to continue to maintain the high-standard bar that we’re known for? Our players know there’s a Blizzard polish. There’s a Blizzard caliber for our artistry that stands out among all the rest, and we’re going to continue to make sure that that’s something we prioritize.”

With the artist legacy a firm part of its past, Faries wants to make expanding the mediums that art is showcased in part of Blizzard’s future.

“We talk a lot about this. We’re not Blizzard Games, we’re Blizzard Entertainment. We want to be able to show up on every screen imaginable,” Faries said. “We want to be able to create new fans who may not have been with us for the past 35 years. How we continue to engage Hollywood or film and TV in bigger ways is going to be, in the near term, probably a big part of that recipe. We also play in music. We also play in non-traditional spaces, beyond gaming, certainly.”

Faries added: “I would confidently say that every one of our IPs could be some of the greatest linear media experiences that the world could experience. So more to come on the specifics. What I will say is that there are highly generative, proactive, near-term discussions across almost every one of our worlds right now, with respect to what can we do, what format works, who’s the right team to take that to new audiences in a high caliber way.”

Among the announcements made during Blizzard’s series of “Showcase” presentations was a revamp for the nearly 10-year-old “Overwatch” franchise with a big narrative expansion. That move came just as Wildlight Entertainment was set to debut its “Overwatch 2” competitor, “Highguard.” In the weeks since, “Highguard” has struggled significantly, while “Overwatch 2” fans have had widely positive reactions to the ambitious roadmap for “Overwatch,” despite a few jokes poked at the rebranding.

“It’s coming to fruition after a couple of years of a strong conversation about, what is a real pivot going to look like?” Faries said. “And how are we going to make sure that it feels genuine, it feels deep, it feels rich, in all the ways that our players are going to want to experience these new characters? I will also say, and I hope that the team would say it as well, competition is a good thing. It keeps us on our toes. It keeps us adapting. It forces us sometimes to adapt and go quicker in spaces.”

“Overwatch’s” new update kicked off with an intense cinematic trailer that the team already knows has once again stirred up conversations about that IP in particular being adapted for TV or film.

“It’s something that we see signaled to us very consistently,” “Overwatch” general manager Walter Kong told Variety. “So whenever we put out any type of lore, including a cinematic thesis, there is a very common expression of, I wish we could have more of this, I wish that we could enjoy these stories. So when I took on the role of franchise GM, these future opportunities and possibilities were something that pushed me to say yes, yes, yes, because I think we have delivered on the game, but there’s still so much on the broader franchise experience that I wanted to bring to players and fans.”

Among “Diablo’s” big teases, including the release of the first update for “Diablo II” in 25 years, “Diablo IV” executive producer and vice president Gavian Whishaw was particularly proud of how in the weeds his team is getting with the features in their upcoming “Lord of Hatred” update.

“The paladin that we’re going to release with the expansion has an expanded skill tree,” Whishaw told Variety. “And this is one of the things that players have been asking us for for a while. It’s an extremely complex system. The joke is that we have a ‘skill twig,’ and they would like a tree, so we’re giving them a tree in the expansion and players have way more choices in the paladin skills. The thing that we’ve also done is we’ve gone back and we’ve done every other class as well. So we’re hoping we can be like — OK, you wanted the tree, here’s the tree for everybody.”

And if deep updates to its current game are what “Diablo” had to share recently, is news on a new title coming at BlizzCon?

“It’s kind of complicated when you’re talking about titles that have been around for 20 years and people are still dedicated to and still playing and still going to get excited about new content,” Whishaw said. “I’ll say at a high level, I think over 30 years of ‘Diablo,’ we’ve done five titles. So I would hope that over the next 30 years we do a few more than that, maybe we get some out faster.”

The “World of Warcraft” team, led by executive producer and vice president Holly Longdale, prioritized the game’s long-awaited housing update in its Showcase, and the priority of making the game as accessible to the staple “WoW” player as to larger casual community.

“There are many of us on the team that are fans of other games, and ‘The Sims’ being one of them, where we look at it and go, here’s some things the community finds frustrating, and if we can find a way to allow it and support it, then we will continually lower barriers for anybody who wants to do it and do it the way they want to do it,” Longdale said.

“There’s two sides to this. One of the most fun ones was when, through a bug, players discovered that they could make their house float above the landscape. We had a fix in place, and we were about to patch it, and the team just went, like, why are we fixing this? They’re making awesome stuff, and isn’t that the purpose? And then there’s some things that we’re like, oh, no, you should not be able to. That is one of the beautiful things about user-generated content is that once it’s out there, just like ‘World of Warcraft’ in general, they own it, and then it’s our job to support it and put some guardrails where they’re needed.”

Longdale says the journey to housing has been “iterative and involved a lot of deeper discussions from the beginning.” “And it got slowly over time less restrictive, less restrictive, less restrictive,” she said. “And then looking at problems like, well, why do we want raiders to care about housing? It’s like, yeah, we want them to care — but they’re not required to care. So making sure that every game loop and audience has some representation, but anyone can do it and participate.”

Blizzard Entertainment as a whole is now trying to strike that balance between giving its 35-year-old brand the room to grow and introduce new things to draw in new audiences and keep the business thriving, while not pushing away its stalwarts.

“We believe we have the best IP in entertainment,” Faries said. “We believe we have some of the greatest gaming talent the world’s ever known. We are going to be as good as our ability to collaborate across these functions and putting together the playbook internally to brainstorm as one, have strong strategic conversations and planning cycles as one, and to align against a big vision that we have for the whole company, in addition to our individual universes and games.”