The second least-watched Oscar telecast on record was enough to give ABC its first — and likely lone — weekly victory during the official 2018-19 prime-time television season, according to live-plus-same-day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen.
Sunday’s hostless three-hour, 13-minute ceremony from the Dolby Theatre averaged 29.558 million viewers, an 11.4 percent increase over last year’s record-low average of 26.541 million for last year’s three-hour, 54-minute ceremony hosted by ABC late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
The 2018 and 2019 Oscar ceremonies are the only ones to average less than 30 million viewers. Individual viewership figures have been kept since 1974.
Viewership for most forms of programming have dropped in recent years, primarily because of increased viewership of streaming programming.
Sunday’s ceremony was the most-watched prime-time entertainment program since the 2017 Oscars telecast, which averaged 33.001 million. It also allowed the Oscars to reclaim its longtime title as television’s most-watched entertainment program of the season, a distinction lost last year to the post-Super Bowl episode of the NBC drama “This Is Us,” which averaged 26.972 million viewers.
The most-watched Academy Awards ceremony was in 1998, when an average of 55.25 million viewers watched then-box office record-setter “Titanic” win the best picture Oscar. Billy Crystal was the host that year.
ABC averaged 7.95 million viewers for its prime-time programming between Feb. 18 and Sunday, its most watched week since the week of Feb. 20-26, 2017. Outside of its Oscar programming Sunday, its most-watched program was the medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” 20th for the week, averaging 6.897 million viewers.
CBS averaged 6.21 million viewers to finish second after five consecutive weekly victories. It had the three most-watched programs outside of ABC’s Oscar programming — “The Big Bang Theory,” third for the week, averaging 13.487 million viewers; “NCIS,” fourth for the week, averaging 12.747 million; and “Young Sheldon,”; fifth for the week, averaging 11.313 million.
NBC was third, averaging 5.04 million viewers. “America’s Got Talent: The Champions,” averaged 10.579 million viewers, the most during its seven-week run, to finish sixth for the week.
“America’s Got Talent: The Champions” has been NBC’s most-watched program each week it has aired.
Fox was fourth, averaging 2.96 million viewers for its 15 hours of programming. “The Masked Singer” was Fox’s most-watched program for the sixth consecutive week, averaging 8.277 million viewers, 14th for the week.
ABC, CBS and NBC each broadcast 22 hours of prime-time programming for ratings purposes.
The week’s most-watched cable program was ESPN’s broadcast of the Duke-North Carolina men’s basketball game, which averaged 4.472 million viewers, the largest audience for an ESPN weeknight men’s college basketball game, erasing the previous record of 4.14 million for the Feb. 18, 2015, Duke-North Carolina game.
The game was 37th among all of the week’s prime-time broadcast and cable programming.
Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network for the sixth consecutive week, averaging 2.393 million viewers.
MSNBC was second, averaging 1.882 million and ESPN third, averaging 1.333 million.
The week’s most-watched Spanish-language program was Univision’s coverage of the Premio Lo Nuestro Latin music awards show, which averaged 2.804 million viewers, 84th among the week’s prime-time broadcast and cable programs.
Univision was the most-watched Spanish-language network for the 17th consecutive week, averaging 1.53 million viewers. Telemundo finished second, averaging 1.14 million viewers, followed by UniMas, which averaged 380,000, Estrella TV, which averaged 300,000, and Azteca America, which averaged 70,000.
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 13th consecutive week and 64th time in the past 65 weeks, averaging 9.464 million viewers.
The “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 8.858 million viewers.
The “CBS Evening News” averaged 6.621 million viewers for its Tuesday through Friday newscasts. It has finished third each week since the week of Sept. 25-29, 2006.
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs were ABC’s Oscars coverage and the 31-minute third segment of “Oscars: Live on the Red Carpet”; CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory,” “NCIS” and “Young Sheldon”; NBC’s “America’s Got Talent: The Champions”; the 30-minute second segment of “Oscars: Live on the Red Carpet”; NBC’s “Chicago Med”; CBS’ “FBI” and NBC’s “Chicago PD.”