TV Ratings: Fox Scores With Prime-Time Football, Cable News

The NFL — and television networks — were blessed with two more thrilling games for the conference championships. The Associated Press reports the latest Nielsen data reveals Fox’s telecast of the NFC game between the L.A. Rams and San Francisco was seen by 50.2 million people, up 7% from last year’s NFC tilt. The AFC game between Cincinnati and Kansas City reached 47.9 million, up 13% from 2021.

With a prime-time playoff game, Fox easily won the week with an 11.3 million viewer average. CBS had 4.4 million, ABC had 2.8 million, NBC had 2.4 million, Univision had 1.6 million, Ion Television had 1.2 million and Telemundo had 1.1 million.

📺Top 20 Prime-Time Shows (Total Viewers)

1. NFC Championship: San Francisco at L.A. Rams, Fox, 50.23 million.

2. “NFC Championship Post-Game,” Fox, 26.52 million.

3. “Next Level Chef,” Fox, 8.11 million.

4. “NCIS,” CBS, 7.79 million.

5. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 7.73 million.

6. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 6.86 million.

7. “The Neighborhood,” CBS, 6.39 million.

8. “Blue Bloods,” CBS, 6.1 million.

9. “Bob Hearts Abishola,” CBS, 5.86 million.

10. “United States of Al,” CBS, 5.57 million.

11. “NCIS: Hawai’i,” CBS, 5.41 million.

12. “911: Lone Star,” Fox, 5.39 million.

13. “FBI,” CBS, 5.35 million.

14. “Magnum, P.I.,” CBS, 5.22 million.

15. “B Positive” (Thursday, 9 p.m.), CBS, 4.96 million.

16. “This is Us,” NBC, 4.76 million.

17. “B Positive” (Thursday, 9:30 p.m.), CBS, 4.72 million.

18. “60 Minutes” (Sunday, 8 p.m.), CBS, 4.67 million.

19. “Let’s Make a Deal,” CBS, 4.51 million.

20. “Judge Steve Harvey,” ABC, 4.17 million.

📺EVENING NEWS

ABC World News Tonight with David Muir finished the week of Jan. 24, 2022 as the No. 1 evening newscast, both in total viewers (averaging nearly 9 million) and among adults 25-54 (averaging 1.62 million), reports TV Newser.

World News Tonight also happened to be the most-watched show on U.S. TV last week, excluding sports, specials and syndication, and delivered its most-watched Friday telecast (9.44 million on Jan. 28) in one year — since Jan. 22, 2021.

Additionally, ABC’s evening newscast has now defeated its competition from NBC and CBS 165 of the past 166 weeks in average total viewers—and 94 of the last 96 weeks among adults 25-54. Season to date, World News Tonight (8.46 million) is ranking No. 1 in Total Viewers for the 6th consecutive year, based on Most Current Data, and No. 1 among adults 25-54 (1.56 million) for the 3rd season in a row.

📺LATE NIGHT SHOWS

📺CABLE NEWS TV

Fox News Channel led the cable networks with a 2.38 million average in prime time. HGTV had 1.22 million, MSNBC had 1.21 million, Hallmark had 946,000 and TNT had 942,000.

Graphics Courtesy of RoadMN (w.permission)

The Five kicked off 2022 as cable news’ most-watched show, averaging nearly 3.57 million viewers in Fox News’ 5 p.m. timeslot. The panel program, which added Jeanine Pirro as a full-time co-host earlier in the month, averaged the second-largest A25-54 audience in January (504,000), according to Nielsen live-plus-same day data. Tucker Carlson Tonight ranked No. 1 in the aforementioned demo in January ’22, averaging 560,000 adults 25-54 at 8 p.m. The program also averaged 3.41 million total viewers at 8 p.m., No. 2 on cable news.

At 7 p.m., FNC’s newly-launched Jesse Watters Primetime drew 3.3 million viewers and 490,000 in the 25-54 demo, more than what Fox News’ 7 p.m. hour had been averaging with rotating guest-hosts.