TV Ratings: Adele Delivers Ratings Worth Singing About

Adele attracted 10.3 million viewers to a busy Sunday night special where she debuted new music, facilitated a marriage proposal and dished with Oprah Winfrey about her divorce and workout routine.

The Nielsen company said the CBS show nearly had a bigger audience than April’s Oscars ceremony and, when delayed viewers are eventually figured in, will likely exceed it, reports The Associated Press.

Probably the two most popular musicians of the day both had weekend television spotlights to hawk new material. Taylor Swift’s 10-minute performance of her song “All of Me” on “Saturday Night Live” reached 5.8 million viewers, and the clip has already been seen more than 2.5 million times on YouTube.

The Academy Awards reached 10.4 million viewers on the night it was televised in April, the audience increasing to 10.7 million adding people who saw it on tape within seven days.

Live events generally do poorly in delayed viewing, leading to CBS’ confidence that Adele will eventually pass Oscar. CBS is likely to rerun the musician’s special, too.

Sunday was strong for CBS. The late afternoon Green Bay-Seattle football game, with 22.7 million viewers, was the most-watched event on television all week. That helped “60 Minutes,” which directly followed the football game, to its biggest audience since January.

CBS led all of the networks with an average of 6.1 million viewers in prime time. NBC had 5.7 million, Fox had 3.83 million, ABC had 3.75 million, Univision had 1.5 million, Ion Television had 920,000 and Telemundo had 850,000.

📺Top 20 Prime-Time Shows:

1. NFL Football: Kansas City at Las Vegas, NBC, 16.74 million.

2. NFL Football: Baltimore at Miami, Fox, 12.92 million.

3. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 12.55 million.

4. NFL Football: Chicago at Pittsburgh, ESPN, 12.11 million.

5. “NFL Pregame,” NBC, 11.83 million.

6. “NFL Postgame,” Fox, 11.34 million.

7. “Adele: One Night Only,” CBS, 10.33 million.

8. “Football Night in America, Part 3,” NBC, 9.56 million.

9. “NFL Pregame,” Fox, 7.68 million.

10. “Yellowstone,” Paramount, 7.49 million.

11. “NCIS,” CBS, 7.32 million.

12. “FBI,” CBS, 7.17 million.

13. “NFL Pregame,” ESPN, 7.07 million.

14. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 7.04 million.

15. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 6.85 million.

16. “CMA Awards,” ABC, 6.833 million.

17. “Football Night in America, Part 2,” NBC, 6.83 million.

18. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 6.63 million.

19. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 6.46 million.

20. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 6.18 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” led the evening news ratings race with an average of 8.3 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 7.1 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.2 million.

📺Late Night Shows Total Viewers:

📺Cable TV Shows:

ESPN led the cable networks with a prime-time average of 2.91 million viewers last week. Fox News Channel had 2.37 million, Hallmark had 1.44 million, MSNBC had 1.12 million and Paramount had 897,000.

Graphics Courtesy of RoadMN

Graphics courtesy of RoadMN

On the programming front, The Five regained its status as the most-watched show on cable news for the week of Nov. 8, averaging 3.28 million viewers and 490,000 adults 25-54, reports TV Newser. 

Tucker Carlson Tonight dropped back to second place in average total viewers (3.27 million) but finished No. 1 on cable news among adults 25-54 (537,000). Hannity finished third in average total viewers (2.85 million) followed by Special Report with Bret Baier (2.52 million) and The Ingraham Angle (2.23 million) rounding out the top 5 in average total viewers. Fox News had 14 of the 15-most-watched shows on cable news of the week, including the top six. MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show rose to No. 7 in average total viewers (1.975 million), after tumbling to No. 10 the week before.