NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” was the most-watched prime-time program for the sixth time in the seven weeks since the conclusion of the NBA Finals while the CBS’ “60 Minutes” was second for the fifth time during that span, according to figures released Tuesday.
“America’s Got Talent” averaged 11.685 million viewers, the most for any prime-time program since its June 19 edition, to finish first among prime-time broadcast and cable programs airing between July 23 and Sunday, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen Tuesday.
The only interruption to the streak came during the week of July 2-8 when NBC aired a rerun because of the customarily lower television viewership on Independence Day eve and “60 Minutes” finished first.
“America’s Got Talent” has been the most-watched entertainment program every week an original episode has aired this summer and last summer.
“60 Minutes” was the week’s only other program to average more than 6 million viewers, averaging 7.064 million.
NBC was the most-watched network for the fourth consecutive week, averaging 4.3 million viewers.
NBC’s most-watched programs outside of “America’s Got Talent” were the 10 p.m. Tuesday “World of Dance” episode that followed “America’s Got Talent” and was sixth for the week averaging 5.642 million viewers and “American Ninja Warrior,” 11th for the week averaging 5.085 million.
CBS averaged 3.77 million viewers to finish second for the fourth consecutive week after three consecutive first-place finishes.
CBS had three of the week’s five most-watched programs, “60 Minutes,” the Wednesday edition of “Big Brother,” fourth for the week averaging 5.698 million viewers, and a rerun of “The Big Bang Theory,” fifth for the week averaging 5.65 million.
ABC averaged 3.08 million viewers to finish third for the seventh consecutive week after back-to-back victories when it aired the NBA Finals.
ABC’s most-watched programs were “The Bachelorette,” third for the week averaging 5.919 million, and a rerun of “Celebrity Family Feud,” 13th for the week, averaging 4.803 million.
Fox finished fourth among the major broadcast networks for the 27th consecutive week, averaging 2.05 million viewers for its 15 hours, 22 minutes of prime-time programming.
Fox’s most-watched program was “MasterChef,” 21st for the week, averaging 3.712 million viewers.
NBC, CBS and ABC all aired 22 hours of prime-time programming for ratings purposes.
The Monday through Thursday episodes of the Fox News Channel opinion talk show “Hannity” swept the top four spots among the week’s most-watched cable television programs, led by the Wednesday episode, which averaged 3.461 million viewers, 23rd overall.
Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network for the eighth consecutive week, averaging 2.34 million viewers.
MSNBC was second, averaging 1.694 million and Shark Week-powered Discovery Channel third, averaging 1.61 million.
The most-watched Spanish-language prime-time program was the Wednesday episode of the Telemundo telenovela “El Senor de los Cielos,” which averaged 1.881 million viewers to finish 69th among broadcast programs. Its overall place was not available.
Telemundo and Univision both averaged 1.2 million viewers to share first place among Spanish-language networks. UniMas was third, averaging 310,000 viewers, followed by Estrella TV, which averaged 240,000, and Azteca America, which averaged 90,000.
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 35th consecutive week and 46th of past 47, averaging 7.874 million viewers.
The “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 7.27 million viewers.
The “CBS Evening News” averaged 5.614 million viewers. It has finished third each week since the week of Sept. 25-29, 2006.
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs were the Tuesday episode of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”; CBS’ “60 Minutes”; ABC’s “The Bachelorette”; the Wednesday edition of CBS’ “Big Brother” and “The Big Bang Theory”; NBC’s “World of Dance”; the Thursday and Sunday editions of “Big Brother” and CBS’ “NCIS” and “Young Sheldon.”