The NBC “Sunday Night Football” game between the New England Patriots and Green Bay Packers drew the largest audience for any prime-time program since the Oscars in March, 23.677 million viewers, in a week football accounted for eight of the week’s top 10 programs, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen Tuesday.
The only entertainment programs to crack the top 10 were both on CBS. “The Big Bang Theory,” was fourth for the week averaging 12.649 million viewers and “NCIS,” fifth, averaging 12.321 million.
CBS was the most-watched network for the third time in the six-week-old 2018-19 television season, averaging 8.02 million viewers for its prime-time programming between Oct. 29 and Sunday.
CBS’ football boost came from Saturday’s matchup between top-ranked Alabama and fourth-ranked LSU, which drew the largest viewership for a college game this season, averaging 11.543 million viewers, eighth for the week.
CBS had four of the week’s five most-watched entertainment programs, including “FBI,” the week’s most-watched new series, which was fifth among entertainment programs and 14th overall, averaging 9.418 million viewers.
“FBI” retained 76.4 percent of the audience from “NCIS” which preceded it.
NBC was second for the third consecutive week, averaging 7.83 million viewers. Its 10-minute “Sunday Night Football” pregame show was third for the week, averaging 17.42 million viewers while the 24-minute third segment of “Football Night in America” was seventh for the week, averaging 11.681 million.
NBC’s most-watched entertainment program was the Monday episode of “The Voice,” 13th for the week, averaging 9.461 million viewers.
Fox was third, averaging 5.52 million viewers for its 17 hours of programming. Fox’s five-minute postgame show following the Los Angeles Rams 45-35 loss to New Orleans was second for the week, averaging 17.796 million viewers and its 19-minute postgame show that followed, “The OT,” was sixth for the week, averaging 12.072 million viewers.
Fox also benefited from a 36-minute runover of its afternoon NFL coverage into prime time in the Eastern and Central time zones. The viewership figure for the runover is not available, but the opening 28 minutes averaged 25.532 million viewers.
The runover is not considered a separate program, but is included in the weekly average.
The San Francisco 49ers 34-3 victory over the Oakland Raiders on Fox’s “Thursday Night Football” averaged 11.096 million viewers, ninth for the week.
Outside of its football programming Fox’s most-watched program was “Last Man Standing,” first in its Friday 8-8:30 p.m. time slot and 34th for the week, averaging 6.106 million viewers.
ABC was fourth for the second consecutive week and fourth time this season, averaging 4.28 million viewers. Its most-watched program was “The Conners,” 21st for the week averaging 7.828 million viewers, 2.2 percent less than the 8.008 million average for the previous week’s episode which aired opposite Game 1 of the World Series.
“Mickey’s 90th Spectacular,” the star-studded celebration of the 90th anniversary of Mickey Mouse’s film debut, was third in its Sunday 8-10:01 p.m. time slot and 53rd for the week, averaging 4.593 million viewers, ABC’s largest audience in the time slot since Oct. 7.
CBS and ABC both broadcast 22 hours of programming for ratings purposes, NBC 21 1/2.
ESPN’s Oct. 29 “Monday Night Football” game between the Patriots and Buffalo Bills was the week’s most-watched cable program, averaging 11.077 million viewers, 10th overall.
The apparently final episode of “The Walking Dead” with Andrew Lincoln was second among cable programs and 40th overall, averaging 5.414 million viewers, the AMC horror series’ second-largest audience of the season, trailing only the ninth season premiere Oct. 7, which averaged 6.076 million. Viewership trailed all 16 episodes of the eighth season.
ESPN was the most-watched cable network, averaging 2.542 million viewers. Fox News Channel was second, averaging 2.47 million, and MSNBC third, averaging 1.85 million.
Sunday’s season finale of the Telemundo competition series “Exatlon Estados Unidos” was the most-watched Spanish-language prime-time program, averaging 1.823 million viewers to finish 87th among broadcast programs. Its overall place was not available.
Univision averaged 1.37 million viewers to be the most-watched Spanish-language network after two consecutive second-place finishes behind Telemundo. Telemundo finished second, averaging 1.23 million, followed by UniMas, which finished averaged 340,000 viewers, Estrella TV, which averaged 310,000, and Azteca America, which averaged 80,000.
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 49th consecutive week and 60th of the past 61, averaging 8.275 million viewers.
The “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 8.060 million viewers.
The “CBS Evening News” averaged 6.056 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 “Sunday Night Football”; Fox’s five-minute postgame show following the Los Angeles Rams-New Orleans Saints game; NBC’s 10-minute “Sunday Night Football” pregame show; CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory” and “NCIS”; Fox’s 19-minute NFL postgame show, “The OT”; NBC’s 24-minute third segment of “Football Night in America”; CBS’ coverage of the Alabama-LSU game; Fox’s “Thursday Night Football” game between the Oakland Raiders and San Francisco 49ers; and ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” game between the Buffalo Bills and New England Patriots.