It has been another banner year on the small screen. So with National Television Day happening on Nov. 21, BetMichigan.com took a break from Michigan sports betting coverage to find the state’s favorite TV shows of 2023.
First we used IMDb’s list of the Top 50 most watched TV shows in the United States from this year. Then we turned to AhRefs to help us narrow the list down to find the five shows that have received the most search engine interest across the country.
This initial Top 5 list consisted of the Disney+’s “Star Wars” series “The Mandalorian,” FX’s culinary comedy “The Bear,” AppleTV+’s heartwarming soccer dramedy “Ted Lasso,” and two HBO mega-hits — “The Last of Us” and “Succession.”
Finally, we referenced Google Trends to rank these shows based on their popularity in the state for folks to watch.
According to our research, HBO’s “The Last of Us” is the top TV show of the year for Michigan residents among the five shows we surveyed. An adaptation of the popular 2013 video game of the same name, the series stars Pedro Pascal as Joel, a smuggler tasked with escorting a young girl named Ellie (played by Bella Ramey) across a post-apocalyptic America. In the show, the nation has been ravaged by an extremely contagious fungal disease — and Ellie’s surprising immunity to it might provide a cure.
“The Last of Us” began airing at the beginning of the year and its viewership grew rapidly over its nine-episode run. The premiere on Jan. 13 had 4.7 million viewers. By the finale, the ratings figures exploded, with 8.2 million people tuning in. The numbers were even bigger on HBO’s streaming service. By May 2023, 32 million people had watched “The Last of Us” in the United States — that’s nearly 10% of the entire population. The show has already been picked up for a second season.
After wrapping up its third and final season this past spring, “Ted Lasso” rates as the second favorite TV show in Michigan. Starring comedian Jason Sudeikis as a college football coach who travels to the UK to manage a down-on-its-luck soccer club, the story about an earnest fish out of water enjoyed critical praise following its debut on AppleTV+ in 2020. While some detractors have criticized subsequent seasons for becoming overly sentimental, fans of the show are clearly still invested in the low-stakes antics of Ted and the rest of the gang behind the AFC Richmond team.
Meanwhile, “The Mandalorian” is the third favorite show of the year for Michigan residents. The “Star Wars” spin-off series is about an intergalactic bounty hunter, also played by Pedro Pascal. Clearly, it has been a huge year for the 48-year-old Chilean actor.
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Author
Jeff Parker is an entertainment and sports writer for BetMichigan.com. A writer for film, television and the internet, Jeff is a life long movie buff, with a Masters Degree in Popular Culture. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he works full time as documentary filmmaker and producer.
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