In its last blast, “The Big Bang Theory” topped the TV ratings by a light-year.
The back-to-back, two-episode finale of the nerdy CBS comedy’s 12-season run drew 18.5 million live viewers Thursday night to easily win the week, according to The Associated Press citing the Nielsen data.
Sunday night’s much-ballyhooed finale of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” was a distant second with 13.61 million live viewers.
“Game of Thrones,” however, had a comparable 18.4 million viewers when HBO’s same-night reruns and streaming services are included, making it the most-watched episode of any kind in the history of the cable channel.
Thursday night’s hour-long finale saw the show’s group of geeky misfits take one last trip together to support married couple Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Amy (Mayim Bialik) after they won the Nobel Prize in physics.
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| Data: Axios research; Chart: Harry Stevens/Axios |
That two-hour “Big Bang” block helped give CBS six of the top 10 shows and an easy win of the week in primetime with an average of 6.5 million viewers. NBC averaged 4.5 million, ABC 3.8 million, Fox 1.9 million, Univision with 1.25 million, ION Television with 1.2 million, Telemundo 1.1 million and the CW 790,000.
ESPN rode the NBA playoffs to the top spot among cable networks. ESPN averaged 2.7 million nightly viewers. Fox News Channel was second with an average of 2.3 million viewers, TNT was third with 2.1 million, MSNBC averaged 1.4 million and HGTV averaged 1.1 million.
⏩ Cable TV Top 10 Prime Time:
- ESPN (2,720,000)
- Fox News Channel (2,333,000)
- TNT (2,123,000)
- MSNBC (1,487,000)
- HGTV (1,160,000)
- NBC Sports Network (1,133,000)
- USA (1,076,000)
- TBS (934,000)
- Hallmark Channel (893,000)
- History (893,000)
⏩ Basic cable ranker: Week of... by Scribd
ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 7.1 million and the “CBS Evening News” averaged 5.4 million viewers.
⏩ The Top 20....Primetime viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for May 13-19,
1. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 18.5 million.
2. “Game of Thrones,” HBO, 13.61 million.
3. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 13.6 million.
4. “NCIS,” CBS, 11.7 million.
5. “Unraveling the Mystery: A Big Bang Farewell,” CBS, 11.6 million.
6. “American Idol” (Sunday), ABC, 8.7 million.
7. “FBI,” CBS, 8.6 million.
8. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 8.4 million.
9. NBA Playoffs-Conference Finals, Portland at Golden State (Thursday), ESPN, 8 million.
10. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 7.98 million.
11. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 7.96 million.
12. “The Voice,” NBC, 7.7 million.
13. NBA Playoffs-Conference Finals, Portland at Golden State (Tuesday), ESPN, 7.5 million.
14. NBA Playoffs-Conference Finals, Portland at Golden State (Saturday), ESPN, 7.24 million.
15. “Survivor,” CBS, 7.21 million.
16. “Bull,” CBS, 7.2 million.
17. “NCIS: New Orleans,” CBS, 6.9 million.
18. “Chicago PD,” 6.7 million.
19. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 6.6 million.
20. “9-1-1,” Fox, 6.4 million.
⏩ Syndication, TV NewsCheck reports Judge Judy regained first place in syndication in the session ending May 12 as ratings for Jeopardy without superstar contestant James Holzhauer declined 27% from its prior week’s 14-year high 8.3 live-plus-same-day national Nielsen to a 6.1. That dropped Jeopardy into a second-place tie with Family Feud.
Judy, which had been syndication’s No. 1 show overall for a modern record 40 straight weeks until Jeopardy began airing Holzhauer-fueled episode, clocked a 7.0 with more than 9.7 million daily viewers, easily outperforming Jeopardy, Feud and everything else.
Holzhauer, who has won the second-most games in Jeopardy history, was off the show May 6 until May 17 due to a two-week tournament and did not reappear until May 20 when he waltzed to win game number 23. His absence also slowed down Jeopardy’s sister show Wheel of Fortune, which declined 8% to a 5.9.
⏩ The top-rated daytime talk shows in the women 25-54 demo were:
- Dr. Phil (1.1, -8% from the week before)
- Live with Kelly and Ryan (0.9, unchanged)
- Wendy Williams (0.8, +14%), tied with Ellen DeGeneres (0.8, unchanged) and Maury (0.8, unchanged)
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