TV Ratings: VMAs Down, NBC Wins Prime, FOX Wins CableTV

Madonna

It may have been a lousy night for Madonna at the MTV Video Music Awards, but the event offered some glimmers of hope for the network.

The Associated Press reports the Nielsen company estimated that 5.23 million watched Monday’s annual tribute to what’s current in popular music across several Viacom-owned networks. While that’s down from the 5.68 million who watched last year, the network appears to have slowed the show’s rapid decline over the past years while showing increases in digital engagement.

MTV estimated that there had been some 141.6 million video streams of content related to the awards show for the past month — including Monday night — up from 76 million a year ago. MTV said it doesn’t have an estimate of how many people streamed Monday’s entire show through the network’s app.

Those numbers hold a greater importance for the younger viewers that MTV seeks, considering how many people experience “television” now on their devices.

The show had its moments, including a glittery Jennifer Lopez medley. Madonna received a harsh reaction for telling a story about the late Aretha Franklin that had more to do with her than the late Queen of Soul.

With a double shot of its most popular show, “America’s Got Talent,” NBC won the week in prime-time, averaging 4.4 million viewers. CBS had 3.6 million viewers, ABC had 3.2 million, Fox had 1.6 mullion, ION Television had 1.4 million, Telemundo had 1.2 million, Univision had 1.1 million and the CW had 800,000.

Viewers continue to find other things to do. Prime-time ratings for the four biggest networks were down by 13 percent compared to the same week last year. Two of the three cable news networks had better ratings than the Fox network.

Fox News Channel was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.24 million viewers in prime time, MSNBC had 1.78 million viewers, HGTV had 1.35 million, USA had 1.34 million and ESPN had 1.26 million.

Basic cable ranker: Week of Aug. 13 (Total Viewers) on Scribd

In basic cable, Sean Hannity was the most-watched regularly scheduled daily program.

MSNBC the No. 2 network on basic cable last week among total viewers, both in prime time and across the total day. The network averaged 1.83 million total prime time viewers.  MSNBC finished No. 3 behind FNC and CNN in the key A25-54 demo.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” led the evening newscasts with an average of 8 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 7.4 million viewers and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.6 million.