TV Ratings: CBS and NBC Place One and Two

“Chicago Fire” was last week’s top-ranked prime-time program, averaging 6.993 million viewers, and “Chicago Med,” which preceded it on NBC, was among only four other prime-time programs to average more than 6 million viewers.

The L-A Times reports CBS had three of the week’s five most-watched programs and finished first in the network race for the fourth time in five weeks, a run interrupted only by Fox’s coverage of Super Bowl LVII. CBS did not finish first during any of the first 18 weeks of the 2022-23 television season. NBC finished first 14 times during the season’s 17 weeks to date, mainly thanks to “Sunday Night Football.”

CBS averaged 3.78 million viewers, NBC 3.43 million and ABC 2.97 million.

“FBI” was CBS’ ratings leader, averaging 6.892 million viewers to finish second, one spot ahead of “60 Minutes,” which averaged 6.879 million. “The Equalizer” averaged 6.514 million viewers following “60 Minutes” on CBS, fifth for the week.

“American Idol” led ABC’s programs for the second time in the two weeks it has aired this season, averaging 5.247 million viewers, retaining 99.6% of the audience from its season premiere a week earlier, which averaged 5.269 million viewers.

Fox averaged 2.04 million viewers for its prime-time programming, topped by “The Masked Singer,” 23rd for the week, averaging 3.833 million viewers.

The top 20 prime-time programs consisted of nine CBS scripted programs, its newsmagazine “60 Minutes” and the alternative program “The Price Is Right at Night”; five NBC scripted programs and the alternative program “America’s Got Talent: All-Stars”; and the ABC alternative programs “American Idol” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and its scripted police drama “The Rookie.”

📺BROADCAST TV EVENING NEWS

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

NBC gave ABC a run for its money this past week in the evening news ratings race, but couldn’t quite pull off the upset, reports TV Newser.

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 221 of the past 222 weeks in average total viewers—and 150 of the last 152 weeks among adults 25-54 (although NBC gave ABC a serious run for its money in the demo this time around). ABC’s evening newscast also topped all broadcast and cable TV programming in total audience this past week.

Muir had an exclusive, two-part interview with President Biden, which aired Wednesday, Feb. 22, from Warsaw, Poland, during President Biden’s visit to the region, and Friday, Feb. 24, from the White House. Muir anchored WNT from Warsaw on Tuesday and Wednesday, and from Washington, D.C., on Thursday and Friday.

According to live plus same day data from Nielsen, World News Tonight averaged nearly 8.3 million total linear viewers for the week of February 13, 2023, a less than -1% drop from the previous week (the week of Feb. 13). 

NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt topped World News Tonight in the key Adults 25-54 demo on Thursday and Friday of last week — winning consecutive days for the first time in three years. The newscast also averaged just -96,000 fewer A25-54 viewers than World News Tonight for the week, the tightest margin since November 2021. Nevertheless, NBC Nightly News came in second place the first three days of the week and ended the week of Feb. 13 in the No. 2 spot among A25-54 behind rival ABC.

The CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell averaged 5.055 million total viewers this past week, a -3% drop from the previous week and -5% vs. the year-ago week. The newscast also averaged 773,000 adults 25-54 this past week, which is -4% from the previous week and -15% vs. the year-ago week.

📺LATE NIGHT TV

During February 2023, Gutfeld! continued to surpass a number of broadcast late-night programs for the month securing 2 million viewers and 322,000 in the 25-54 demo, besting CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (321,000 A25-54) in the younger demo and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! (1,532,000 P2+) and NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (1,411,000 P2+) with total viewers. In cable, FNC’s late-night show swept CNN’s airing of Bill Maher’s Overtime in its debut month which averaged just 354,000 viewers and 71,000 with A25-54. Airing at 11 PM/ET, Gutfeld! topped every show on CNN and MSNBC as well with both viewers and A25-54


📺CABLE TV

Fox News Channel won the prime-time cable network race for the fifth consecutive week, averaging 2.065 million viewers. ESPN averaged 1.058 million viewers to finish second, three spots higher than the previous week, when it averaged 820,000. MSNBC finished third for the second consecutive week following a second-place finish, averaging 1.033 million.

Graphic Courtesy of RoadMN

The cable top 20 consisted of 13 Fox News Channel weeknight talk shows (five broadcasts each of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and “Hannity” and three of “The Ingraham Angle”) and its Sunday talk show “Life, Liberty & Levin”; the MSNBC news and opinion program “The Rachel Maddow Show”; History’s “The Curse of Oak Island”; all three hourlong segments of the USA Network’s “WWE Raw”; and TNT’s coverage of the Lakers’ 124-111 victory over the Golden State Warriors Thursday.

Each of the top five prime-time cable programs were editions of the Fox News Channel political talk show “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” topped by the Wednesday broadcast, which averaged 3.184 million viewers, 33rd overall.

📺STREAMING TV

The third season of “Outer Banks” was Netflix’s most-streamed program, with viewers watching the 10 episodes of the adventure drama for 154.97 million hours the first four days they were available, according to figures released by the streaming service Tuesday.

“We Have a Ghost” was Netflix’s most popular movie, with viewers watching the horror comedy for 40.47 million hours in its first three days of release.