“America’s Got Talent” accounted for both of last week’s prime-time programs to average more than 7 million viewers with its first results show of the summer drawing NBC’s largest non-Olympics audience in the Wednesday 8-9 p.m. time slot since the series’ Sept. 20 season finale, according to figures released Tuesday.
The competition episode averaged 11.138 million viewers, more than the combined total viewership of CBS, ABC and Fox in the 8-10 p.m. time slot Aug. 14, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen Tuesday.
The “America’s Got Talent” results show was second among prime-time broadcast and cable programs airing between Aug. 13 and Sunday, averaging 9.857 million viewers.
“America’s Got Talent” has been the most-watched program nine of the 10 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 CBS news magazine “60 Minutes” was the week’s only other program to average more than 6 million viewers, averaging 6.291 million viewers to finish third.
Each of the week’s 12 most-watched programs were on NBC or CBS. Following the 1-2 finish by the two “America’s Got Talent” episodes, NBC’s most-watched programs were “World of Dance,” ninth for the week, averaging 5.126 million viewers, and “American Ninja Warrior,” 10th for the week, averaging 5.078 million viewers.
CBS had each of shows finishing third through eighth. The Wednesday, Sunday and Thursday “Big Brother” episodes were fourth, fifth and sixth, averaging 5.833 million, 5.798 million and 5.731 million.
NBC was the most-watched for the seventh consecutive week, averaging 4.38 million viewers. CBS was second for the sixth time in seven weeks, averaging 3.62 million viewers.
ABC was third for the ninth time in the 10 weeks since the conclusion of the NBA Finals, averaging 3.17 million viewers. Its most-watched program was a rerun of “Celebrity Family Feud,” 13th for the week, averaging 4.602 million viewers.
Fox finished fourth among the major broadcast networks for the 30th consecutive week, averaging 1.59 million viewers for its 15 hours, 53 minutes of prime-time programming.
Fox’s most-watched program was “MasterChef,” 26th for the week, averaging 3.419 million viewers.
NBC and CBS both aired 22 hours of prime-time programming for ratings purposes, ABC 21 hours.
The eighth season premiere of the Discovery’s “Alaskan Bush People” was the week’s most-watched cable program, averaging 3.412 million viewers, 27th overall.
Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network for the 11th consecutive week, averaging 2.236 million viewers.
MSNBC was second, averaging 1.78 million and HGTV third, averaging 1.345 million.
The most-watched Spanish-language prime-time program was the Thursday episode of the Telemundo telenovela “El Senor de los Cielos,” which averaged 1.856 million viewers to finish 62nd 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 six consecutive weeks.
Telemundo was the most-watched Spanish-language network for the fifth time in the past six weeks, averaging 1.16 million viewers. Telemundo and Univision tied for first the other week during that span.
Univision was second, averaging 1.14 million viewers, followed by UniMas, which averaged 280,000 viewers, Estrella TV, which averaged 220,000, and Azteca America, which averaged 90,000.
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 38th consecutive week and 49th of past 50, averaging 7.991 million viewers.
The “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 7.414 million viewers.
The “CBS Evening News” averaged 5.56 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 and Wednesday editions of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”; CBS’ “60 Minutes,” the Wednesday, Sunday and Thursday episodes of “Big Brother,” “The Big Bang Theory” and “NCIS”; and NBC’s “World of Dance” and “American Ninja Warrior.”
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