The Gallaghers closed out their first season on Showtime with over 1.5 million of their friends on Sunday night.
The season-one finale of Shameless garnered 1.16 million viewers during its 10 p.m. on March 27, according to Nielsen data, and added 352,000 encore watchers to finish with 1.5 million on the night. That marked the biggest rookie year finale for a network original series since June 24, 2001, when Queer as Folk scored with 1.49 million, according to officials at the premium channel.
The first season of Shamless has averaged more than 3.7 million weekly viewers across multiple platforms, including on demand and replays, to rank as Showtime's third best-rated show, behind Dexter and Weeds.
Meanwhile, the fourth-season finale of Californication collected an average of 547,000 during 9 p.m. debut, and 1.06 million when the 9:30 p.m. and midnight replays are factored in, according to Nielsen.
Showtime officials said the campaign has averaged 2.5 million viewers across all platforms, a 7% decrease from Californication's third season, when it benefited from having the network's top series, Dexter, as a lead-in.
