TV Ratings: AGT Climbs Back To The Top

NBC's "America's Got Talent" returned to the top of the prime-time ratings after a five-week absence, while "60 Minutes" was the week's only other prime-time program to top 4 million viewers.

"America's Got Talent" averaged 5.676 million viewers, its largest audience since June 27 when it averaged 5.97 million viewers, to finish first for the third time this summer, according to City News Service in Los Angeles citing live-plus-same-day figures by Nielsen.

Each of the summer's 10 original episodes of "America's Got Talent" has been the week's most-watched entertainment program.

Since the last time "America's Got Talent" finished first, the first- place finishers were "60 Minutes", Fox's coverage of Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, the combined viewership for Fox's English-language coverage and Telemundo's Spanish-language coverage of the United States-Vietnam 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup game, Fox's coverage of the United States- Netherlands game 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup game and NBC's coverage of the NFL Hall of Fame Game.

CBS finished first in the network race for the seventh time in eight weeks, averaging 2.65 million viewers. NBC averaged 2.18 million viewers to finish second, a week after being lifted to first by the NFL Hall of Fame Game. ABC was third for the second consecutive week after back-to-back second-place finishes and three in four weeks, averaging 2.09 million viewers. Its most-watched program was "Celebrity Family Feud," third for the week averaging 3.863 million viewers.

The 20 most-watched prime-time programs consisted of the NBC alternative series "America's Got Talent" and "American Ninja Warrior"; "60 Minutes"; reruns of eight episodes of CBS scripted series; five episodes of ABC alternative series; three episodes of the CBS alternative series "Big Brother"; and the Aug. 8 edition of the MSNBC political talk show "The Rachel Maddow Show," the most-watched cable program, averaging 2.749 million viewers, 18th overall.

Univision was the most-watched Spanish-language network for the 53rd consecutive week and 191st time in 193 weeks, averaging 1.09 million viewers. Telemundo was second, averaging 680,000 viewers, followed by UniMas (270,000) and Estrella TV (80,000).

📺CABLE TV

Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network for the seventh consecutive week and eighth time in nine weeks, averaging 1.754 million viewers. It was first among cable news networks for the ninth consecutive week and 129th time in 130 weeks.

MSNBC averaged 1.41 million viewers to finish second among cable networks for the fourth consecutive week. HGTV was third for the second consecutive week, CNN was eighth for the week, averaging 581,000.

Graphics Courtesy of RoadMN

On the programming front, for the second consecutive week, Fox News has six of the 10 most-watched daily cable news shows this past week, including the top four.

The cable prime-time top 20 consisted of 12 Fox News Channel weeknight political talk shows -- four broadcasts each of "Jesse Watters Primetime," "Hannity" and "Gutfeld!"; five MSNBC political talk shows -- four editions of "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" and the Aug. 7 edition of "The Rachel Maddow Show"; the 8 p.m. Sunday edition of the western "1883: A Yellowstone Origin Story" on Paramount Network and seven minutes of interstitial programming leading into the 9:13 p.m. episode; and the first hourlong segment of the USA Network professional wrestling program "WWE Raw."

📺BROADCAST EVENING NEWS

ABC's "World News Tonight with David Muir" was the most-watched nightly newscast for the 245th time in 246 weeks, averaging 7.339 million viewers. "NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt" was second, averaging 5.976 million viewers.

The "CBS Evening News with Norah O'Donnell" was third, averaging 4.342 million viewers.

📺STREAMING TV

Netflix's most-watched title was the Gal Gadot-starring spy action thriller "Heart of Stone," which was watched for 69.6 million hours the first three days it was available.

The second season of the legal drama "The Lincoln Lawyer" was Netflix's most-watched series for the second consecutive week, with viewers spending 42.4 million hours watching the 10 episodes.

For the second consecutive week, an episode of the Univision telenovela "Tierra de Esperanza" was the most-watched Spanish-language program with the Thursday episode averaging 1.586 million viewers, 53rd among broadcast programs. Its overall rank was not available.