Tiger Effect Lifts PGA Championship Ratings

There’s nothing like a late charge from Tiger Woods to juice the ratings of a major golf tournament.

CBS reached 8.5 million viewers Sunday for final-round competition at the PGA Championship from St. Louis, a whopping 73 percent increase from the 4.9 million people who watched the same tournament’s conclusion in 2017, the Associated Press reports citing Nielsen data.

Woods was the difference. The old hero was playing his best golf in years, leading to a second-place finish against champion Brooks Koepka. Koepka may have won, but crowds and newspaper headlines followed Woods.

They were the best ratings for a PGA championship since 2009. Viewership peaked in the last half-hour of the tourney, when 12.3 million people were watching, Nielsen said.

It was a typical midsummer week for prime-time television, dominated by games of singing, dancing and interpersonal manipulation. NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” led the way with 11 million viewers.

NBC won the week in prime-time, averaging 4.1 million viewers. ABC had 3.9 million viewers, CBS had 3.8 million, Fox had 1.7 million, ION Television had 1.4 million, Telemundo had 1.2 million, Univision had 1.1 million and the CW averaged 800,000 viewers.

Fox News Channel was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.13 million viewers. MSNBC had 1.71 million viewers, HGTV had 1.33 million, USA had 1.29 million and History had 1.09 million.

Basic cable ranker: Week of Aug. 6 (Total Viewers) on Scribd

FNC claimed 17 of the top 30 cable telecasts overall in total viewers, including presentations of Hannity, (which was the No. 1 program on basic cable this past week), The Ingraham Angle, Tucker Carlson Tonight, The Five and Special Report with Bret Baier.

Despite a controversy-filled week for Laura Ingraham, The Ingraham Angle won its timeslot in total viewers by a healthy margin, in addition to defeating CNN programming by +25 percent and MSNBC by +20 percent in the 25-54 demo.

TV Newser graphic

ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.9 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 7.3 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.5 million.