CBS Wins Broadcast Week, FNC Wins CableTV For 2Q

“America’s Got Talent” continues to dominate the summer television landscape, although not by enough to make NBC the week’s most popular network.

Citing Nielsen figures, The Associated Press reports the talent show was seen by 11.3 million people last week, more than four million more than the next closest show, a repeat version of “60 Minutes,” the Nielsen company said Tuesday.

CBS’ “Big Brother” has returned to the network’s summer schedule, and each episode was in the Nielsen’s top 20 for the week. CBS’ summer dramas, “Code Black” and “Instinct,” are also being watched, although not at the level of traditional in-season shows.

CBS won the week in prime time, averaging 4.3 million viewers. NBC had 4.2 million, ABC had 3.2 million, Fox had 2.2 million, Univision had 1.5 million, ION Television had 1.4 million, Telemundo had 1.2 million and the CW had 820,000.

Fox News Channel was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.6 million viewers in prime time. MSNBC had 1.5 million, HGTV had 1.44 million, USA had 1.32 million and ESPN had 1.26 million.

During 2Q ’18, FNC averaged 1,409,000 million in total viewers, which, while No. 1 overall, is -4 percent from its Q2 2017 delivery. The network also delivered 286,000 with A25-54 in total day, which is -9 percent compared to Q2 2017.

In prime time, however, the trend is better, according to TVNewser. The network delivered 2,447,000 in total viewers, which is +4 percent from its Q2 2017 delivery, and 480,000 in the 25-54 demo, which is +2 percent from last year.

FNC also bested MSNBC and CNN in both prime time and total day in total viewers and A25-54.

Basic cable ranker: Q2 2018 (Total Viewers) on Scribd

ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.8 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 7.2 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.5 million.

WNT also defeated its NBC rival among adults 25-54 (+1,000) during a quarter for the first time in 3 years–since Q2 2015.

But ABC’s win in the demo comes with a bit of an asterisk. Because of retitling of the evening newscasts during NBC’s Stanley Cup Finals coverage and ABC’s NBA Finals coverage, NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt and ABC World News Tonight only went head to head a few nights during the first few weeks of June, the final month of Q2 2018. If one excludes the first 2 weeks of June which were impacted by the NBA and NHL playoffs, Nightly News actually comes out on top in the A25-54 demo by +6,000 viewers.