CBS Tops In Broadcast, Fox On CableTV

CBS soared in the ratings with major plot moves on the season finales of its two most popular shows, reports the Associated Press citing Nielsen stats.

On the comedy “The Big Bang Theory,” Sheldon and Amy’s characters tied the knot, while Pauley Perrette’s character, Abby, signed off from “NCIS” after a decade and a half with the drama. Both programs reached more than 15 million viewers last week, well above any other show on the air, the Nielsen company said.

Pauley Perrette

With the television season coming to an end — and networks presenting next season’s schedules to advertisers in New York this week — broadcasters ran almost exclusively original programs last week.

Of the 20 most-watched shows, 13 were on CBS and four were on ABC. NBC had three, with two of them editions of “The Voice.”

That led CBS to an easy victory in the prime-time ratings, as the network averaged 7.1 million viewers. NBC (4.46 million) and ABC (4.44 million) ran neck-and-neck for second. Fox had 2.6 million, Univision had 1.4 million, ION Television had 1.2 million, Telemundo had 1.1 million and the CW had 1 million.

TNT was the most popular cable network, taking advantage of the NBC playoffs to average 2.74 million viewers in prime time. Fox News Channel had 2.43 million, MSNBC had 1.62 million, HGTV had 1.24 million and USA was at 1.19 million.

According to TVNewser, Hannity was the No. 1 cable news program in both total viewers and A25-54 demo, marking 8 consecutive weeks as the most-watched cable news show, and four weeks as the No. 1 show in the 25-54 demo.

The Ingraham Angle defeated MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show last week, both in total viewers and among adults 25-54. That’s the first time Ingraham has posted a weekly win over Maddow in the key categories.

Despite finishing No. 3 across basic cable, both in prime and in total day, MSNBC posted a very rare year-over-year loss in audience. The network was -9 percent in prime time and -9 percent in total day; and CNN posted double digit audience losses from the same week last year.

Basic Cable Ranker: Week of May 7 (Total Viewers) on Scribd

Basic Cable Ranker: Week of May 7 (P25-54) on Scribd

ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.6 million viewers. The “NBC Nightly News” had 7.4 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.6 million.