Homeland returned Sunday for its third season premiere, drawing 1.9 million viewers in its new 9 p.m. time slot, the most for a premiere in the show's history.
This was the first season the spy drama did not lead out of Dexter, which aired its final season over the summer to help launch Ray Donovan.
The premiere, which went up against the series finale of AMC's Breaking Bad, was up 12% over last year's 10 p.m. premiere. Homeland drew 710,000 viewers for its 11 p.m. replay to give the show 2.61 million viewers for the night.
Following Homeland was the premiere of period drama Masters of Sex, which debuted to 1 million viewers and 1.4 million across two plays, tying the spy drama's cumulative series debut in 2011. Showtime said that more than 1 million viewers also viewed the premiere online and on demand, which was made available two weeks prior to Sunday.
