MLB All-Star Game Ratings Off A Bit

Baseball’s All-Star Game edged down to a record low in viewership as it reversed last year’s increase.

According to The Associated Press citing Nielsen ratings released Tuesday, Major League Baseball’s exhibition game last week drew 8.7 million viewers on Fox.

That’s just under the previous record low of 8.71 million viewers in 2016, and about 6 percent less than 2017′s audience of 9.28 million.

Although the game ranked as the week’s No. 2 program, it was topped by NBC’s “America’s Got Talent,” which drew 11.3 million.

Summertime series reruns have driven viewers into the arms of reality and competition shows, which claimed half of the top 10 spots.

NBC was the week’s winning network in U.S. prime-time viewing, averaging 4.3 million viewers. CBS had 3.8 million, ABC had 3.4 million, Fox had 3.3 million, ION Television had 1.36 million, Telemundo had 1.17 million, Univision had 1.14 million and the CW had 790,000 viewers.

Lifted by extensive coverage of President Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Finland last Monday, Fox News was able to achieve the distinction of being the most-watched basic cable network in total day for the 28th consecutive week. Fox News Channel was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.38 million viewers. MSNBC had 1.89 million, USA had 1.39 million, HGTV had 1.28 million and Hallmark had 1.26 million.

Basic Cable Top 10 – Prime time (Total Viewers):

1. Fox News (2,446,000)
2. MSNBC (1,955,000)
3. USA (1,356,000)
4. HGTV (1,298,000)
5. ESPN (1,279,000)

Basic Cable Ranker: Week of July 16 (Total Viewers) on Scribd

Basic cable Ranker: Week of July 16 (A25-54)

ABC’s “World News Tonight” led 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.