The season received high ratings for Showtime; the pilot episode attracted more than a million viewers, giving the channel its highest ratings in nearly two years, while the finale "Born Free" drew an audience of 1.1 million viewers in the U.S. On average, the season was watched by two million viewers per episode during its original run when factoring in DVR viewers. Due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild strike and encouraged by the show's critical success and high ratings on Showtime, CBS, a national terrestrial broadcast network, announced in December 2007 that it was considering airing an edited version of the first season of "Dexter" for free-to-air broadcast. It began to broadcast it on February 17, 2008, and thus, "Dexter" became the first program in 20 years to air on a broadcast network after being shown on a premium cable channel. During the show's rerun on the CBS network in 2008, the ratings were much higher, reaching 8.2 million viewers during its premiere February, giving the network its best rating in the 10 p.m. timeslot since December the previous year. During its 12-week run, it dropped to 7.1 million in early April, and to 6.6 million during the season's finale on May 6.