TV Ratings: Serena and Football Score Viewers

Serena Williams’ long goodbye to the U.S. Open proved a boon to ESPN.

Facing down the possibility of a first-round knockout, Williams instead gave the sports network four nights of prime-time programming last week, with her eventual loss to Ajla Tomljanovic reaching the largest audience of any tennis match in ESPN’s 43-year history.

The Associated Press reports ESPN happily adjusted on the fly, asking Open officials to move Williams’ doubles match with her sister Venus to Thursday evening, and moving a college football game off its main network on Friday to make room for the match with Tomljanovic.

That Friday match reached 4.8 million viewers, peaking at 6.9 million, the Nielsen company said. It beat the previous record-holder, the 2012 Wimbledon men’s final between Roger Federer and Andy Murray.

Williams’ first-round victory over Danka Kovinic last Monday, along with a post-match ceremony, was seen by 2.7 million people — or 289% above comparable first round coverage in 2021, Nielsen said. Wednesday’s victory over Anett Kontaveit reached 3.6 million. Thursday’s sister act, the first time ESPN has shown a doubles match in prime time, averaged 2.2 million.

Among broadcast networks last week, ABC led with a prime time average of 4.2 million viewers. NBC had 2.63 million, CBS had 2.56 million, Fox had 1.6 million, Univision had 1.1 million, Ion Television had 1 million and Telemundo had 860,000.

📺Top 20 Prime-Time Show for the week Aug 29-Sep4 (Total Viewers):

1. College Football: Notre Dame at Ohio State, ABC, 10.53 million.

2. College Football: Florida St. at LSU, ABC, 7.55 million.

3. “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday), NBC, 6.36 million.

4. “America’s Got Talent” (Wednesday), NBC, 5.48 million.

5. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 5.12 million.

6. U.S. Open Tennis (Friday), ESPN, 4.56 million.

7. “Password,” NBC, 3.92 million.

8. “Big Brother” (Wednesday), CBS, 3.8 million.

9. “FBI,” CBS, 3.7 million.

10. “Big Brother” (Thursday), CBS, 3.68 million.

11. College Football: Penn State at Purdue, Fox, 3.51 million.

12. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (Monday), Fox News, 3.39 million.

13. “Bachelorette: Men Tell All,” ABC, 3.32 million.

14. “Press Your Luck,” ABC, 3.294 million.

15. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (Tuesday), Fox News, 3.288 million.

16. “Big Brother” (Sunday), CBS, 3.27 million.

17. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 3.208 million.

18. “The Neighborhood,” CBS, 3.206 million.

19. College Football: West Virginia at Pittsburgh, ESPN, 3.15 million.

20. “American Ninja Warrior,” NBC, 3.14 million.

📺BROADCAST EVENING NEWS:

ABC’s “World News Tonight” won the evening news ratings race with 7.2 million viewers last week, Nielsen said. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 6 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 4.1 million.

According to TV Newser citing live-plus-same-day data from Nielsen, World News Tonight with David Muir averaged 7.45 million total viewers and 1.275 million adults 25-54 for the week of August 29. The 7.45 million figure means World News Tonight is not only the top-rated evening newscast, but it’s also the most-watched show on U.S. TV—excluding sports—for the 21st consecutive week. Additionally, ABC’s evening newscast has now defeated its competition from NBC and CBS 196 of the past 197 weeks in average total viewers—and 125 of the last 127 weeks among adults 25-54.

📺LATE NIGHT TV:

Graphic Courtesy of RoadMN

📺CABLE TV:

ESPN led all the cable networks with an average of 2.58 million, Fox News had 2.1 million, MSNBC had 1.36 million, HGTV had 870,000 and USA had 842,000.

Fox News topped the total average audience for CNN and MSNBC combined, while also crushing the cable news channels during the primetime hours of 8-11 p.m. ET. 

Fox News averaged 2.1 million primetime viewers, while MSNBC averaged 1.4 million and CNN settled for a dismal 653,000. It was much of the same among the advertiser-coveted demographic of adults age 25-54, where Fox News averaged 286,000 primetime viewers among the critical category, compared to only 138,000 for CNN and a bleak 136,000 for MSNBC.

Fox News also topped CNN and MSNBC combined in the key demo among total day viewers, averaging 206,000 compared to 99,000 for CNN and 89,000 for MSNBC.

Graphics Courtesy of RoadMN

"The Five" averaged 3.3 million viewers to take the total-viewer crown, while "Tucker Carlson Tonight" averaged 441,000 viewers among the demo sought-after by advertisers to finish No. 1 in the category.

📺STREAMING

The streaming debut of “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” reached an estimated 1.8 million U.S. households last weekend, according to Samba TV. That’s Amazon Prime’s biggest debut of the year.