TV Ratings: CBS, NBC, ABC 1-2-3

Viewership for CBS’ coverage of the Grammy Awards was up 30.8% from last year, but still the third-lowest on record.

The first 3 hours, 12 minutes of Sunday’s ceremony from Crypto.com Arena averaged 12.545 million viewers, according to The L-A Times citing live-plus-same-day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen. Under Nielsen rules, the ratings cover the time from the start of the ceremony until the end of the final commercial break.

The Grammys set a record low in 2021, 9.227 million, when much of the ceremony was virtual. The only Grammy ceremonies on record to average fewer than 17 million viewers have come since 2021. 

Like nearly all forms of programming, viewership for awards shows has declined in recent years because of increased options available on streaming services, including the same programs as on traditional television. Figures are available dating back to 1977. The record audience for the Grammys was in 1984, when it averaged 51.671 million. Michael Jackson won a record eight awards.
CBS had each of the eight top-ranked prime-time programs and 10 of the top 11 for its second victory in the 20-week-old 2022-23 prime-time television season, both coming in the last two weeks.

CBS averaged 5.26 million viewers, NBC 2.89 million and ABC 2.73 million.

CBS’ “Young Sheldon” was the week’s highest-rated scripted program, averaging 7.31 million viewers, third for the week. Each of its 11 first-run episodes this season has been its week’s top comedy.

The top 20 prime-time programs consisted of two segments of the Grammys; nine CBS scripted programs, “60 Minutes” and “The Price is Right at Night”; three NBC scripted programs and “America’s Got Talent: All-Stars”; and the ABC alternative programs “Celebrity Jeopardy!” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos” Shark and its scripted series “The Rookie.”

The five editions of the Fox News Channel political talk show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” topped the cable rankings for the second consecutive week, topped by the Monday edition, which averaged 3.487 million viewers, 29th overall.

📺BROADCAST EVENING NEWS

ABC World News Tonight with David Muir remained the top-rated evening newscast for the week, and has defeated its competition from NBC and CBS 218 of the past 219 weeks in average total viewers—and 147 of the last 149 weeks among adults 25-54.

World News Tonight averaged 8.84 million total linear viewers this past week, a -2% drop from the previous week (the week of Jan. 23) but still the second-largest audience on all of U.S. television, excluding sports programming.   NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt averaged 7.57 million total viewers on linear during the week of Jan. 30, making it the third-most-watched U.S. show of the week—excluding sports, specials and syndication.  The CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell averaged 5.51 million total viewers this past week, -3% from the previous week and -6% vs. the year-ago week, according to TV Newser.

📺LATE NIGHT TV

Graphic Courtesy of RoadMN

How much faith does Fox Corp have in its news network’s late-night comedy show, Gutfeld!? So much that it will be the only Fox News program to be promoted during Super Bowl LVII, which takes place this coming Sunday and will air on Fox, reports TV Newser. Promos for Greg Gutfeld’s 11 p.m. show will air on the Fox broadcast network once during pre-game and once during the actual game broadcast, consisting of 10-second and 15-second spots, respectively.

📺CABLE TV

Fox News Channel won the cable network prime-time race for the second consecutive week, averaging 2.23 million viewers. ESPN was second, averaging 1.092 million viewers, and MSNBC third, averaging 1.023 million.

The cable top 20 consisted 14 Fox News Channel weeknight political talk shows (five broadcasts each of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and “Hannity” and four of “The Ingraham Angle”); ESPN’s coverage of Saturday’s Duke-North Carolina men’s basketball game; History’s long-running chronicle of a search for treasure on a Canadian island, “The Curse of Oak Island”; the MSNBC news and opinion program, “The Rachel Maddow Show”; the first two hour-long segments of the USA Network professional wrestling program “WWE Raw”; and the Hallmark Channel movie, “Sweeter Than Chocolate.”

Graphics Courtesy of RoadMN

In terms of individual programming, The Five is the most-watched cable news show for the week, averaging 3.28 million total viewers, edging Tucker Carlson Tonight (3.235 million at 8 p.m.), with Jesse Watters Primetime (2.86 million at 7 p.m.), Hannity (2.58 million at 9 p.m.) and Special Report with Bret Baier (2.41 million viewers at 6 p.m.) rounding out the top five, according to TVNewser.

Tucker Carlson Tonight took the top spot on cable news among adults 25-54, per usual, averaging 461,000 viewers from the measurement at 8 p.m. The Five ranks No. 2 (353,000) followed by Hannity (345,000), Watters (326,000), and Gutfeld! (312,000) rounding out the top five in the key demo.

Fox News had the 13-most-watched cable news shows for the week (MSNBC’s The Beat With Ari Melber ranked No. 14 — 1.32 million at 6 p.m.) Additionally, Fox News had the top 15 cable news shows of the week among Adults 25-54.

📺STREAMING TV

“You People” was Netflix’s most-streamed program for the second consecutive week, with viewers spending 65.61 million hours watching the romantic comedy in its first full week of release, 17.9% more than the 55.65 million hours watched the previous week when it was available for three days, according to figures released by the streaming service Tuesday.