TV Ratings: Football Rules The Top 5 Shows

The Nielsen company said 42.8 million people watched the San Francisco 49ers beat the Green Bay Packers to punch their Super Bowl ticket, and 41.1 million people watched Kansas City beat Tennessee this past weekend, reports The Associated Press.

Both conference championship games went into overtime last year, and the audiences were 44.2 million and 53.9 million, Nielsen said. By contrast, this year’s games were one-sided.

Meanwhile, LSU’s win over Clemson in the college football national championship game was seen by 25.6 million on ESPN, Nielsen said. That’s a little over a million more than last year’s game reached.

With the benefit of an NFL game in prime time, Fox led all the broadcast networks in ratings last week, averaging 9.9 million viewers. CBS had 4.9 million viewers in prime time, NBC had 4.2 million, ABC had 3.8 million, Univision had 1.6 million, ION Television had 1.3 million, Telemundo had 890,000 and the CW had 790,000.

⏩ Broadcast network Top 20 programs as measured by Nielsen last week:

1. NFC Championship: Green Bay at San Francisco, Fox, 42.79 million.
2. “NFL Post-Game” (9:44 to 9:49 p.m. Eastern), Fox, 31.29 million.
3. College Football Championship: Clemson vs. LSU, ESPN, 25.58 million.
4. “NFL Post-Game” (9:50 to 10:04 p.m. Eastern), Fox, 23.92 million.
5. “College Football Post-Game,” ESPN, 16.7 million.
6. “Jeopardy! Greatest of All Time, Match 4,” ABC, 13.55 million.
7. “911: Lone Star,” Fox, 11.41 million.
8. “NCIS,” CBS, 10.13 million.
9. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 8.88 million.
10. “FBI,” CBS, 8.57 million

11. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 8.45 million.
12. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 8.17 million.
13. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 8.1 million.
14. “Democratic Debate,” CNN, 7.4 million.
15. “Chicago PD,” NBC, 6.78 million.
16. “This is Us,” NBC, 6.73 million.
17. “America’s Got Talent Champions,” NBC, 6.53 million.
18. “FBI: Most Wanted,” CBS, 6.52 million.
19. “Mom,” CBS, 6.3 million.
20. “Democratic Debate Analysis,” CNN, 5.77 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” led the evening news ratings race, averaging 9.3 million viewers last week. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 8.1 million viewers and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.9 million viewers.

ESPN led the cable networks, averaging 4.28 million viewers in prime time. Fox News Channel averaged 2.75 million, MSNBC had 1.86 million, CNN had 1.46 million and TLC had 1.18 million.

TV Newser reports:

• Sean Hannity continued to average the most total viewers of any cable news host. His 9 p.m. show, his 8 p.m. lead-in Tucker Carlson Tonight, The Ingraham Angle, and The Five, made up 16 of the top 30 cable telecasts in total viewers.
• Shannon Bream, who just signed a new contract with Fox News, defeated MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Brian Williams in Adults 25-54 for the 8th consecutive week. However, Williams defeated Bream in overall viewership.
• Lifted by her news-making, record-breaking interview with controversial Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, Rachel Maddow was the No. 1 host on cable news last week among Adults 25-54. Her program averaged 551,000 demo viewers, knocking off prime time counterparts Hannity (536,000) and Tucker Carlson (523,000).

Here’s how the three networks fared when compared against all of basic cable:

⏩ Basic Cable Top 5 – Prime Time (Total Viewers)

1. ESPN (4,399,000)
2. Fox News (2,842,000)
3. MSNBC (1,922,000)
4. CNN (1,507,000)
5. TLC (1,152,000)