Fox’s coverage of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game edged out NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” as last week’s most-watched prime- time television program, despite near record-low viewership.
The American League’s 6-3 victory over the National League last Tuesday in Cincinnati averaged 10.91 million viewers. It was the game’s second-lowest audience in prime time, ahead of only the 2012 game, which averaged 10.9 million viewers.
The All-Star Game had set record lows in 10 of the 18 years from 1995 through 2012. Fox Broadcasting has carried the game each year since 2001.
The two-hour Tuesday edition of “America’s Got Talent,” which ran opposite the All-Star Game pregame show and the game’s first one hour, 36 minutes, was second for the week, averaging 10.82 million viewers. It was the only other program to average more than 9 million viewers between July 13 and Sunday, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen today.
The Home Run Derby on ESPN July 13 averaged 7.13 million viewers, its most since 2009 and the most for any cable during the week. It was seventh among all the week’s prime-time programs.
The Home Run Derby was the week’s second-most watched program among viewers ages 18-49, averaging 3.23 million viewers among the harder-to-reach group that ABC, Fox and NBC target and advertisers covet. The All-Star Game was first, averaging 3.9 million.
The move of the ESPY Awards from ESPN to ABC helped the sports awards ceremony draw its largest-ever audience, 7.75 million viewers, putting it fifth for the week.
The ESPY Awards were the week’s most-tweeted about prime-time program with 1.23 million tweets from three hours before the start of the ceremony to three hours afterward. The Premios Juventud awards ceremony on Univision for Spanish-speaking celebrities in film, music, sports, fashion and pop culture was second with 773,000. It was 46th in viewership, averaging 3.87 million viewers.
CBS had five of the 11 most-watched prime-time programs to finish first in the network race for the third time in four weeks following the end of ABC’s coverage of the NBA Finals, averaging 5.15 million viewers.
ABC was second, averaging 4.57 million viewers, followed by NBC (4.34 million) and Fox (3.89 million).
ABC was first among viewers ages 18-49, averaging 1.46 million, edging Fox, which averaged 1.45 million. The Spanish-language Univision network was third, averaging 1.4 million, followed by NBC (1.35 million) and CBS (1.13 million).
Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network, averaging 1.73 million viewers, with Disney Channel second (1.66 million) and USA Network third (1.65 million).
Univision’s coverage of the CONCACAF Gold Cup game between Mexico and Costa Rica was the week’s most-watched Spanish-language prime-time program, averaging 4.66 million viewers, 29th among all prime-time broadcast and cable programs.
As usual, Univision was the most-watched Spanish-language network, averaging 2.66 million viewers. Telemundo was second, averaging 1.33 million, followed by UniMas (940,000), MundoFox (170,000), Estrella TV (140,000) and Azteca America (70,000).
The “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the fourth consecutive week, averaging 7.81 million viewers. ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was second (7.51 million) and the “CBS Evening News” anchored by Scott Pelley was third (6.49 million).
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs were Fox’s coverage of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game; the Tuesday edition of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”; ABC’s “Celebrity Family Feud”; CBS’ “60 Minutes”; ABC’s coverage of the ESPY Awards; CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory”; ESPN’s coverage of baseball’s Home Run Derby; ABC’s “The Bachelorette”; and CBS’ “NCIS” and “Zoo.”
— Wire Reports