“Suits” is off to a slow start as it returns to television. “Suits LA,” NBC‘s new spinoff of the hit USA Network series, debuted with 2.6 million viewers on Sunday night.
Out of four new drama series on the network’s lineup this season, the premiere viewership of “Suits LA” ranked in third, per Live + Same Day data from Nielsen: “Brilliant Minds” came to NBC with 3.9 million viewers on Monday, Sept. 23 while “The Hunting Party” premiered on Sunday, Jan. 19 with 3.1 million viewers. Only “Grosse Pointe Garden Society” lagged behind, debuting with 1.8 million viewers at 10 p.m. on Sunday, directly after “Suits LA.”
“Suits LA” was only able to retain 50% of the audience that tuned into NBC in the timeslot directly before its 9 p.m. bow, as the Tom Hanks-narrated nature documentary “The Americas” averaged 5.2 million viewers in the second block of its premiere, up from 4.7 million during its first hour. And in the same timeslot as “Suits LA,” the third episode of “Watson” won with 4.7 million viewers on CBS.
“Suits LA” was greenlit at NBC after the original “Suits,” which concluded in 2019, exploded back into popularity when it was added to Netflix during the summer of 2023. Per Nielsen, it was the most-streamed series of that year by a solid margin: It was watched for 57.7 billion minutes total, putting it 31.4% above “Bluey,” 2023’s No. 2 title, and also broke the record “The Office” set in 2020 for most minutes watched in a single year. Additionally, the show set new records for the longest winning streak on Nielsen’s weekly streaming rankings, charting at No. 1 for 12 weeks in a row, and the most appearances at No. 1 with 15 weeks on top in total.
Though the spinoff does not seem poised to match that level of popularity, it can be assumed that a significant portion of its audience will come from streaming viewers in the days after its NBC premiere. Still, “Suits LA” is only available to stream on Peacock, while it was Netflix that gave the original its massive moment in 2023.
“Suits LA” stars Stephen Amell as Ted Black, a former federal prosecutor from New York who reinvents himself as an entertainment lawyer but finds himself taking up a criminal defense case. The cast also includes Lex Scott Davis, Josh McDermitt and Bryan Greenberg.
Aaron Korsh, who created the original “Suits,” is the creator “Suits LA” and serves as executive producer alongside David Bartis, Doug Liman, Gene Klein, Anton Cropper, Genevieve Sparling, Rick Muirragui and Jon Cowan also executive produce. Universal Content Productions is the studio.
