TV Ratings: Football Helps NBC To A Win

Football is back in the picture now, and in last week’s ratings NBC was the biggest beneficiary. The network’s two prime-time NFL games helped it dominate the weekly competition, where NBC averaged 8.8 million viewers, reports The Associated Press citing Nielsen data.

CBS landed in second with 3.7 million viewers, ABC had 3.5 million, Fox had 3.3 million, ION Television had 1.3 million, Univision had 1.2 million, Telemundo had 1.1 million and the CW had 610,000.

⏩ Broadcast Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Sept. 2-8:

1. NFL Football: Green Bay at Chicago, NBC, 22.24 million.
2. NFL Football: Pittsburgh at New England, NBC, 22.21 million.
3. “NFL Thursday Pre-game,” NBC, 14.79 million.
4. NFL Football: Detroit at Arizona, Fox, 13.99 million.
5. “NFL Sunday Pre-game,” NBC, 10.72 million.
6. “NFL Opening Kickoff Show,” NBC, 10.69 million.
7. “NFL Post-game,” Fox, 9.8 million.
8. “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday), NBC, 9.11 million.
9. College Football: LSU at Texas, ABC, 8.63 million.
10. “America’s Got Talent” (Wednesday), NBC, 8.56 million.

11. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 7.56 million.
12. “Football Night in America, Part 3,” NBC, 7.51 million.
13. College Football: Notre Dame at Louisville, ESPN, 5.68 million.
14. “Football Night in America, Part 2,” NBC, 5.34 million.
15. “NCIS,” CBS, 5.21 million.
16. “Big Brother” (Sunday), CBS, 4.75 million.
17. “American Ninja Warrior,” NBC, 4.47 million.
18. “Big Brother” (Wednesday), CBS, 4.46 million.
19. “FBI,” CBS, 4.21 million.
20. “Big Brother” (Thursday), CBS, 4.18 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.4 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 7.5 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.4 million viewers.

ESPN was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.58 million viewers in prime time. Fox News Channel had 2.15 million, MSNBC had 1.37 million, HGTV had 1.2 million and TLC had 1.07 million.

⏩ Basic cable ranker:  on Scribd

On Labor Day Monday (Sept. 2), FNC was the most-watched cable news network for special breaking news coverage of Hurricane Dorian. When it came to drawing the key A25-54 demo, however, The Weather Channel was No. 1.