TV Ratings: Football, Reality Conclusions Dominate

Football and other forms of televised competition — the season finales of some popular reality shows — dominated the Nielsen company’s weekly list of the most popular shows on television, reports The Associated Press.

Four separate NFL games were on Nielsen’s list of the most popular programs in prime-time. As is typical, NBC’s Sunday night game, most recently featuring New Orleans’ surprise shutout of the Tampa Bay Bucs, topped the list.

NBC’s “The Voice,” CBS’ “Survivor” and Fox’s “The Masked Singer” all crowned winners this past week and had fans tuning in. “The Voice,” with 7.3 million viewers for the first of two parts on Monday, had the highest numbers.

One television staple, ABC’s showing of “The Sound of Music” movie, reached 3.3 million people on Sunday night, Nielsen said.

Fox won the week in prime time among broadcast networks, averaging 5.7 million viewers last week. NBC had 5.1 million, CBS had 3.8 million, ABC had 3.5 million, Univision had 1.3 million, Ion Television had 1 million and Telemundo had 910,000.

📺Top 20 Prime Time Show (Total Viewers)

1. NFL Football: New Orleans at Tampa Bay, NBC, 18.06 million.

2. NFL Football: Kansas City at L.A. Chargers, Fox, 17.86 million.

3. “NFL Pregame,” NBC, 12.17 million.

4. “The OT,” Fox, 11.18 million.

5. “NFL Pregame,” Fox, 9.26 million.

6. “Football Night in America, Part 3,” NBC, 8.92 million.

7. “FBI,” CBS, 8.31 million.

8. NFL Football: L.A. Rams at Arizona, ABC, 7.97 million.

9. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 7.94 million.

10. NFL Football: L.A. Rams at Arizona, ESPN, 7.93 million.

11. “Yellowstone,” Paramount, 7.74 million.

12. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 7.28 million.

13. NFL Football: New England at Indianapolis, NFL Network, 7.26 million.

14. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 6.98 million.

15. “FBI: Most Wanted,” CBS, 6.86 million.

16. “Survivor,” CBS, 5.61 million.

17. “The Masked Singer,” Fox, 5.08 million.

18. “1883,” Paramount, 4.98 million.

19. “NFL Pregame,” ABC, 4.74 million.

20. “Football Night in America, Part 2,” NBC, 4.73 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” won the evening news ratings race, averaging 8.2 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 7.5 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.1 million.

Graphic Courtesy of RoadMN

Fox News Channel won among the cable networks, averaging 2.2 million in prime time. ESPN had 1.89 million, Hallmark had 1.48 million, MSNBC had 1.3 million and Paramount had 1.07 million.

Graphics Courtesy of RoadMN

On the programming front, Fox News’ The Five was the most-watched cable news show of the week, averaging 3.19 million total viewers in the 5 p.m. hour.

 TVNewser reports The Five has finished No. 1 on cable news in total viewers back-to-back weeks. The panel program ranked No. 2 on cable news in the key A25-54 demo (416,000) behind Tucker Carlson Tonight (481,000). TCT ranked No. 2 last week in total viewers (3.11 million) at 8 p.m. Hannity was third in cable news across the board, averaging 2.63 million viewers and 411,000 in the 25-54 demo. Special Report with Bret Baier was No. 4 on cable news with 2.28 million total viewers and 317,000 A25-54.

MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show saw audience growth, and finished the week at No. 5 in total viewers, averaging 2.25 million. The remaining 10-most-watched cable news shows for the week were Fox News shows, including The Ingraham Angle (2.13 million), Fox News Primetime (1.89 million), Gutfeld! (1.89 million), America’s Newsroom (1.64 million) and Outnumbered (1.61 million) round out the top 10 in total viewers.

Fox News placed 11 of the top 15 cable news shows in total viewers.