TV Ratings: Oscar Helps ABC Win Week, Fox News Wins February

The Oscars led ABC to a weekly win in the ratings last week The show’s audience of 29.6 million was up 12 percent over last year’s show, but it still finished as the second least-watched Oscars telecast ever.

According to The Associated Press citing Nielsen data, ABC averaged 8 million viewers for the week. CBS was second with 6.2 million, NBC had 5 million, Fox had 3 million, Univision had 1.5 million, ION Television had 1.3 million, Telemundo had 1.1 million and the CW had 610,000.

Fox News Channel was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.39 million viewers. MSNBC had 1.88 million, ESPN had 1.33 million, HGTV had 1.32 million and USA had 1.23 million.

For the month,  February 2019 marked a whopping 32 consecutive months for Fox News as the most-watched basic cable network in total day with 1.5 million viewers. FNC also averaged 2.6 million total viewers in prime time this month.

According to TV Newser, not only did Fox News finish No. 1 across all of basic cable for the month of February, but the network also beat CNN and MSNBC among adults 25-54.

But not everything came up roses for Fox News. There were year-over-year losses. In prime time, Fox News was -6 percent in total prime time viewers, -6 percent in total day viewers vs. the network’s February 2018 ratings.

The drop was even steeper among adults 25-54, -20 percent among adults 25-54 watching prime time and -21 percent among adults 25-54 across the total day.

TV Newser reports MSNBC is the second-most-watched network across all of cable television for February 2019, and continued its impressive streak of posting year-over-year total audience growth. The network averaged 1.96 million viewers in prime time in February 2019, +9 percent versus what the network delivered in February 2018 . The network was also +12 percent in total day viewers, year-over-year.

On the downside, the network is skewing older (no offense, Boomers/Greatest Generation!) and younger viewers seem to be leaving the network. This has been especially true outside of the prime time daypart.

Compared with February 2018, MSNBC was -14 percent in the prime time demo, and -15 percent in the total day demo this past month.

On broadcast TV, ABC’s “World News Tonight” led the evening newscasts with an average of 9.5 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 8.9 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.6 million.

⏩Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Feb. 18-24:

1. “The Oscars,” ABC, 29.56 million.
2. “Live From the Red Carpet” (7:30-8 p.m. ET), ABC, 14.16 million.
3. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 13.49 million.
4. “NCIS,” CBS, 12.75 million.
5. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 11.31 million.
6. “America’s Got Talent Champions,” NBC, 10.58 million.
7. “Live From the Red Carpet” (7-7:29 p.m.), ABC, 10.42 million.
8. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 9.12 million.
9. “FBI,” CBS, 9.07 million.
10. “Chicago PD,” NBC, 8.94 million.

11. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 8.86 million.
12. “Mom,” CBS, 8.41 million.
13. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 8.3 million.
14. “The Masked Singer,” Fox, 8.28 million.
15. “Survivor,” CBS, 7.76 million.
16. “This is Us,” NBC, 7.56 million.
17. “Hawaii Five-0” (Friday, 9 p.m. ET), CBS, 7.11 million.
18. “NCIS: New Orleans,” CBS, 7.03 million.
19. “Hawaii Five-0” (Friday, 10 p.m. ET), CBS, 8.98 million.
20. “Grey’s Anatomy,” ABC, 6.9 million.