TV Ratings: Super Bowl Powers Win For Fox

Fox will find out soon whether “The Masked Singer” benefits from the best time slot in television.

A new episode of the game, usually Fox’s most popular prime-time program or close to it, airs on Wednesday. A special edition of the show, with Lil’ Wayne as the mystery guest, had its biggest audience ever Sunday when 23.7 million people watched it, the Associatred Press reports citing Nielsen data.

That’s because it aired after the Super Bowl, traditionally television’s best-watched event by far, and a certain number of viewers don’t turn off the TV after the game is over. If there’s one thing that unites all prime-time television producers, it’s the fervent wish to be plugged into a network lineup on Super Sunday.

The game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers — not to mention an explosive halftime show featuring Jennifer Lopez and Shakira — was seen by an average of 99.9 million people. That was a slight increase over the 2019 game, ending a four-year run of declining viewership for the NFL’s marquee event.

The game lifted Fox to an average of 13.3 million viewers in prime-time last week. CBS was second with 4 million viewers, NBC had 2.7 million, ABC had 2.6 million, ION Television had 1 million, Univision had 990,000, Telemundo had 720,000 and the CW had 500,000.

⏩ Broadcast Prime-Time ratings rank for total viewers:

1. Super Bowl: Kansas City vs. San Francisco, Fox, 99.9 million.
2. “Super Bowl Post-Game” (10:11 to 10:21 p.m. Eastern), Fox, 83.51 million.
3. “Super Bowl Post-Game” (10:22 to 10:39 p.m.), Fox, 57.04 million.
4. “The Masked Singer,” Fox, 23.7 million.
5. “NCIS,” CBS, 12.13 million.
6. “FBI,” CBS, 9.27 million.
7. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 8.65 million.
8. “Hawaii Five-0,” CBS, 7.56 million.
9. “Blue Bloods,” CBS, 7.53 million.
10. “America’s Got Talent Champions,” 7.35 million.

11. “Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials,” CBS, 7.1 million.
12. “Magnum P.I.,” CBS, 7.05 million.
13. “This Is Us,” NBC, 6.44 million.
14. “Station 19,” ABC, 6.12 million.
15. “FBI: Most Wanted,” CBS, 6.11 million.
16. “Mom,” CBS, 6.09 million.
17. “The Bachelor,” ABC, 6.01 million.
18. “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 5.89 million.
19. “Unicorn,” CBS, 5.77 million.
20. “The Good Doctor,” ABC, 5.7 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” led the evening newscasts with an average of 9.1 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 7.9 million and the “CBS Evening News” 5.9 million viewers.

Fox News Channel led all of the cable networks with an average of 2.84 million viewers in prime-time, and had 38 of the 40 most-watched programs on cable TV last week. ESPN was second with an average of 2.66 million viewers, MSNBC had 1.79 million, Hallmark had 1.47 million and TLC had 1.22 million.

⏩ Basic Cable Prime Time Total Viewers:

1. Fox News (3,384,000)
2. MSNBC (1,588,000)
3. ESPN (1,214,000)
4. HGTV (1,126,000)
5. CNN (1,084,000)
6. A&E (1,050,000)
7. History (1,004,000)
8. Hallmark Channel (982,000)
9. Discovery (942,000)
10. TBS (936,000)

⏩ Basic Cable Ranker: Week on Scribd