Tiger Woods bid for his first major championship since 2008 helped “60 Minutes” to its largest audience of the summer, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen Tuesday.
Sunday’s episode with three previously broadcast segments averaged 8.213 million viewers, “60 Minutes”’ most since May 20 when it averaged 8.359 million viewers for three first-run stories on the final Sunday of the 2017-18 official television season.
CBS’ coverage of the final round of the PGA Championship that preceded “60 Minutes,” averaged 8.5 million viewers, the most for a final round of the PGA Championship since 2009. Woods finished second, two strokes behind winner Brooks Koepka.
“60 Minutes” finished second for the seventh time in the past nine weeks. It also finished first once during that stretch and third the week Fox aired Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game.
NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” was the only other prime-time program to average more than 8 million viewers between Aug. 6 and Sunday, averaging 11.044 million viewers to finish first for the eighth time in the nine weeks since the conclusion of the NBA Finals.
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.
“America’s Got Talent” has been the most-watched entertainment program every week an original episode has aired this summer and last summer.
The week’s only premiere on the four major broadcast networks, the ABC alternative series “Castaways” averaged 3.129 million viewers, ABC’s largest audience in the 10-11 p.m. Tuesday time slot for an entertainment program during television’s summer season since July 12, 2016, when it aired a rerun of “The $100,000 Pyramid.”
“Castaways” retained 81.7 percent of the audience of the two-hour season premiere of “Bachelor in Paradise” that preceded it. “Bachelor in Paradise” averaged 3.829 million viewers, 22nd for the week.
“Castaways” was 32nd among the week’s broadcast and cable programs and third in its time slot behind a rerun of CBS’ “NCIS: New Orleans,” which averaged 4.417 million viewers and the second episode of the NBC crafting competition series “Making It,” which averaged 4.149 million viewers, a 20 percent drop from its 5.192-million average from its premiere.
The second episodes of nearly all broadcast series drop in viewership from the premieres.
Although “America’s Got Talent” was its only program among the week’s top eight, NBC was the most-watched for the sixth consecutive week, averaging 4.08 million viewers.
NBC’s second most-watched program was “American Ninja Warrior,” ninth for the week, averaging 5.023 million viewers.
ABC averaged 3.85 million viewers to finish second after eight consecutive third-place finishes. ABC’s most-watched program was “The Bachelorette” season finale which was third for the week, averaging 6.722 million, 11.3 percent less than the 7.582-million average for last year’s “Bachelorette” season finale.
Viewership for most comparable programs is down from last year in part because of increased viewership of streaming programs, including the streaming versions of broadcast programs.
CBS averaged 3.79 million viewers to finish third after five consecutive second-place finishes. It had five of the week’s eight most-watched programs.
Fox finished fourth among the major broadcast networks for the 29th consecutive week, averaging 1.65 million viewers for its 15 hours, 41 minutes of prime-time programming.
Fox’s most-watched program was “MasterChef,” 25th for the week, averaging 3.697 million viewers.
NBC, CBS and ABC all aired 22 hours of prime-time programming for ratings purposes.
The Wednesday episode of the Fox News Channel opinion talk show “Hannity” was the week’s most-watched cable television program, averaging 3.161 million viewers, 31st overall.
The Tuesday episode of MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” was second among the week’s cable programs and 34th overall, averaging 3.068 million.
Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network for the 10th consecutive week, averaging 2.128 million viewers.
MSNBC was second, averaging 1.712 million and HGTV third, averaging 1.333 million.
The most-watched Spanish-language prime-time program was the Monday episode of the Telemundo telenovela “El Senor de los Cielos,” which averaged 1.947 million viewers to finish 58th among broadcast programs. Its overall place was not available.
An episode of “El Senor de los Cielos” has been the most-watched Spanish-language prime-time program for five consecutive weeks.
Telemundo was the most-watched Spanish-language network for the fourth time in the past five weeks averaging 1.23 million viewers. Telemundo and Univision tied for first the other week during that span.
Univision was second, averaging 1.13 million viewers, followed by UniMas, which averaged 250,000 viewers, 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 37th consecutive week and 48th of past 49, averaging 7.868 million viewers.
The “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 7.267 million viewers.
The “CBS Evening News” averaged 5.45 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 NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”; CBS’ “60 Minutes”; ABC’s “The Bachelorette” and “Celebrity Family Feud”; CBS’ Sunday and Wednesday episodes of “Big Brother,” “NCIS” and the Thursday “Big Brother” episode; and NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior” and “World of Dance.”