TV Ratings: MLB Good For Fox, Sports Powers Viewing

Baseball was especially good to Fox, with the Atlanta-Houston World Series lifting the network to its first weekly ratings win in the young TV season, reports The Associated Press citing Nielsen data. Bragging rights also went to football and NBC last week, with NFL regular-season games earning the top two spots for the week.

The series rebounded from last year’s contest, which hit an all-time viewership low that was attributed to the pandemic and competition from the 2020 presidential election.

The Houston Astros must-have win Sunday over the Atlanta Braves, then leading the series 3-1, was the standout so far in the potential seven-game series, according to Nielsen figures out Tuesday.

The 9-5 Astros victory drew 13.6 million viewers — a 35% jump over the 10 million who watched 2020’s Los Angeles Dodgers Game 5 defeat of the Tampa Bay Rays.

Overall, Fox averaged 11.9 million viewers in prime time, followed by NBC with 5.4 million. CBS had 3.9 million, ABC had 3.5 million, Univision had 1.3 million, ION Television had 970,000 and Telemundo had 930,000.

📺Top 20 Prime Time Shows:

1. NFL Football: Green Bay at Arizona, Fox, 20.3 million.
2. NFL Football: Dallas at Minnesota, NBC, 15.7 million.
3. MLB World Series Game 5, Fox, 13.6 million.
4. “The OT,” Fox, 13.3 million.
5. MLB Pregame (Sunday), Fox, 12.5 million.
6. NFL Pregame (Sunday), NBC, 11.8 million.
7. MLB World Series Game 3, Fox, 11.2 million.
8. 
   NFL Football: New Orleans at Seattle, ESPN, 11.19 million.
9. MLB World Series Game 1, Fox, 10.8 million.
10. MLB World Series Game 4, Fox, 10.5 million.
11. NFL Pregame (Thursday), Fox, 10.46 million.
12. MLB World Series Game 2, Fox, 10.3 million.
13. NFL Pregame (Sunday), NBC, 9.2 million.
14. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 7.2 million.
15. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 7.11 million.
16. “Saturday Night Football: Penn State at Ohio State,” ABC, 7.1M
17. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 6.9 million.
18. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 6.801 million.
19. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 6.8 million.
20. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 6.7 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” led the evening news ratings competition, averaging 8.1 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 7 million, and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.2 million.

Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable channel in prime time with an average 2.21 million viewers. It was followed by ESPN with 2.17 million, Hallmark with 1.28 million, MSNBC with 1.11 million and HGTV with 857,000.

📺CableTV For The Week:

Graphics courtesy of  RoadMN 

📺Cable TV For October:

Graphic Courtesy of RoadMN

TV Newser reports Fox News’ 5 p.m. roundtable talk program The Five has been moving up the cable news program ranks in recent months. One of the five-most-watched shows on cable news early in 2021, The Five shot up to No. 3 in July, proceeded to move past Hannity and become the second-most-watched cable news show in August, and remained No. 2 on cable news for the month of September.

Well, October is complete, and for the first time since the show launched a decade ago, The Five is ending a month as the most-watched show on all of cable news, moving past powerhouse Tucker Carlson Tonight in average total viewers (Carlson is still No. 1 among adults 25-54). An impressive ascent. 

Led by The Five, Fox News is home to nine of the 10-most-watched cable news shows for October, and 13 of the top 15, with the other two hailing from MSNBC.