TV Ratings: World Cup Draws Record Audience For Fox Sports

Fox drew a record audience for its coverage of Sunday’s FIFA World Cup final but the game had fewer viewers than its NFL coverage that followed, reports The L-A Times.

Argentina’s victory on penalty kicks over France after overtime ended in a 3-3 tie averaged 16.783 million viewers on Fox and Fox Sports streaming services, the most for a men’s English-language World Cup telecast in U.S. television history, according to figures released Tuesday by Nielsen. The previous record was 15.491 million for the 0-0 U.S.-England group stage game Nov. 25, also on Fox.

The Spanish-language coverage on Telemundo and Peacock averaged 9 million viewers, a 65% increase from the 5.5 million average for the 2018 final between France and Croatia.

Fox’s NFL coverage averaged 18.658 million viewers, 41% more than last season’s comparable window.

“Wednesday” moved into second on Netflix’s all-time list for viewership for an English-language television series in its first 28 days of release, with another 173.96 million hours watched from Dec. 12-18, increasing its total to 1.196 billion hours in its 26 days of release through Sunday, according to figures released by the streaming service. The fourth season of “Stranger Things” holds the record with 1.352 billion hours streamed.

“Harry & Meghan” was second on Netflix for the week, with 97.71 million hours watched of its six episodes, including its final three, which were released Thursday. “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” was Netflix’s most-streamed movie, with 39.38 million hours in its first full week of release.

“60 Minutes” was the week’s top non-NFL program, averaging 9.594 million viewers, fourth for the week behind “Sunday Night Football,” the NFL Network’s telecast of Saturday’s Buffalo Bills-Dolphins game and the “Sunday Night Football” pre-kickoff show.

“Yellowstone” led all entertainment programs for the sixth time in the six weeks of its fifth season, averaging a combined 9.064 million viewers on Paramount Network and CMT, sixth for the week.

NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” drew its smallest audience of the season’s 15 games but still was the top-ranked prime-time program for the week of Dec. 12-18, with the New York Giants’ 20-12 victory over the Washington Commanders averaging 15.376 million viewers. The previous low was 15.534 million viewers for the Miami Dolphins’ 16-10 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers Oct. 23.

An NFL program has led the ratings each week of the 13-week-old 2022-23 prime-time television season.

The combination of “Sunday Night Football” and five hours of “The Voice” put NBC at the top of the network rankings for the 11th time in the season, averaging 5.57 million viewers. The only weeks NBC did not win this season came when Fox aired coverage of the World Series.

NBC’s top non-NFL programs were the two-hour season finale episodes of “The Voice” on Tuesday and its Monday edition, which respectively averaged 6.948 million and 6.897 million viewers, fifth and sixth among non-NFL programs and 11th and 12th overall. An additional hour of “The Voice” that ran before the season finale was 14th for the week, averaging 5.3 million viewers.

CBS was second for the week, averaging 4.51 million, and ABC third, 2.66 million.

ABC’s ratings leader was “Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration,” 20th for the week, averaging 4.26 million viewers.

The top 20 prime-time programs consisted of three NFL games; five NFL pregame shows; “60 Minutes”; “Yellowstone”; five CBS scripted programs and its alternative series “Survivor”; all three episodes of the NBC singing competition “The Voice”; and “Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration.”

Saturday’s Buffalo-Miami game on NFL Network led all cable programming, averaging 11.058 million viewers, second for the week.

📺BROADCAST EVENING NEWS TV

ABC's David Muir, CBS' Norah O'Donnell, NBC's Lester Holt

ABC, NBC and CBS’ evening newscasts week to week viewer gains during the week of December 12, according to TV Newser.

Top-ranked ABC World News Tonight with David Muir held on to its No. 1 status in the evening news ratings race — meaning it has now defeated its competition from NBC and CBS 211 of the past 212 weeks in average total viewers—and 140 of the last 142 weeks among adults 25-54. The newscast averaged 8.68 million total linear viewers this past week, a +2% gain from the previous week (the week of Dec. 5) and No. 2 on all of U.S. television, excluding sports programming.  WNT also averaged 1.41 million viewers from the key demo this past week, which is up +3% from the prior week. Compared to the same week in 2021,  ABC’s evening newscast is +6% in total viewers—and up just short of +1% in A25-54 viewers.

World News Tonight ranked as the No. 1 evening newscast in 2022 in Total Viewers (8.16 million) for the sixth consecutive year, and in Adults 25-54 for the 3rd straight year. 

NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt remains the second-ranked evening newscast, and saw substantially more week-to-week growth than its competitors. The newscast averaged 7.41 million total viewers this past week along with 1.28 million A25-54 during the week of Dec. 12. That’s a gain of +5% and +9%, respectively, from what the newscast drew in those measurements the previous week. 

CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell averaged 5.24 million total viewers this past week, which is +2% from the previous week—and +3% from the year-ago week.

📺LATE NIGHT TV

Graphic Courtesy of RoadMN

📺CABLE TV

ESPN returned to the top of the cable network ratings after a one-week absence, averaging 1.975 million viewers for its sixth first-place finish in eight weeks. Fox News Channel dropped one spot to second, averaging 1.941 million viewers.

Hallmark Channel rose one spot to third, averaging 1.194 million viewers. MSNBC dropped one spot to fourth, averaging 1.067 million viewers. Paramount Network was the only other cable network to average more than 1 million viewers for its prime-time programming, averaging 1.019 million viewers.

Graphics Courtesy of RoadMN

TV Newser reports The Five is the most-watched cable news show for the 17th consecutive week. The news talk panel program averaged 3.175 million total viewers during the week of Dec. 12. Tucker Carlson Tonight is second place in total viewers (2.94 million at 8 p.m.), with Jesse Watters Primetime (2.735 million at 7 p.m.), Special Report with Bret Baier (2.35 million viewers at 6 p.m.) and Hannity (2.32 million at 9 p.m.) rounding out the top five.

Tucker Carlson Tonight took the top spot on cable news among adults 25-54, per usual, averaging 384,000 viewers from the measurement at 8 p.m. The Five ranks No. 2 (365,000) followed by Hannity (285,000), Gutfeld! (279,000) and Jesse Watters Primetime (267,000) rounding out the top five in the key demo.

Fox News had the 10-most-watched cable news shows for the week, and 12 of the top 15. Fox also had the top 15 cable news shows of the week among Adults 25-54.