“NCIS” was last week’s most-watched prime-time program, the seventh first-place finish by a CBS program in the seven weeks since ABC’s Oscars telecast.
“NCIS” averaged 11.886 million viewers to be among three prime-time programs between April 15 and Sunday to average more than 9 million viewers, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen Tuesday.
The CBS comedy “The Big Bang Theory” was second for the week, averaging 11.445 million viewers. “Game of Thrones” was third, averaging 10.287 million viewers, a 12.5% drop from the 11.76-million average for its eighth and final season premiere a week earlier.
Viewership for the HBO fantasy drama was the fourth largest among its 69 episodes in live-plus-same-day figures on traditional television, behind the seventh-season finale, the eighth-season premiere and the fifth of seven seventh-season episodes.
The week’s lone premiere on the four major broadcast networks, the ABC comedy “Bless This Mess,” was 28th for the week, sixth among ABC programs and second in its 9:30-10 p.m. time slot April 16, averaging 4.72 million viewers, ABC’s largest audience in the time slot with series programming this season.
“Bless This Mess” had the rare feat of being a premiere that drew more viewers than the program that preceded it. Its viewership was 35.1% larger than the 3.492-million average for the episode of “black-ish” that preceded it.
CBS had five of the week’s six most-watched programs for the second consecutive week to finish first in the network race for the seventh consecutive week, 13th time in 14 weeks and 18th in the 30-week-old 2018-19 prime-time television season, averaging 5.96 million viewers.
ABC was second for the second consecutive week and fifth time since its Oscar week victory, averaging 4.38 million viewers. Its most-watched program was the Sunday edition of “American Idol,” ninth for the week averaging 7.114 million viewers.
NBC was third for the second consecutive week, averaging 3.6 million viewers. Its most-watched program was the Monday edition of “The Voice,” seventh for the week, averaging 7.658 million viewers.
Fox was fourth for the 14th consecutive week, averaging 2.48 million viewers for its 15 hours, 26 minutes of programming. Its most-watched show was the procedural “9-1-1,” 19th for the week, averaging 5.654 million viewers.
CBS and ABC both broadcast 22 hours of prime-time programming for ratings purposes and NBC 21 hours, 50 minutes.
Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network for the 13th time in 14 weeks, averaging 2.41 million viewers. TNT was second, thanks to NBA playoff coverage, averaging 2.196 million viewers.
MSNBC was third, averaging 1.718 million viewers.
The most-watched prime-time sporting event was TNT’s coverage of the Portland Trail Blazers 111-98 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 4 of their NBA Western Conference first-round series Sunday, which averaged 3.744 million viewers, third among cable programs and 48th overall.
The most-watched Spanish-language prime-time program was the Wednesday episode of the Telemundo telenovela “Betty en NY,” which averaged 1.563 million viewers to finish 78th among broadcast programs. Its overall rank was not available.
Univision’s 24-week streak as the most-watched Spanish-language network was ended by Telemundo, which averaged 1.24 million viewers. Univision finished second, averaging 1.17 million viewers, followed by UniMas, which averaged 330,000, Estrella TV, which averaged 240,000, and Azteca America, which averaged 50,000.
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 21st consecutive week and 72nd time in the past 73 weeks, averaging 8.081 million viewers.
The “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 7.667 million viewers.
The “CBS Evening News” averaged 5.693 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 CBS’ “NCIS” and “The Big Bang Theory”; HBO’s “Game of Thrones”; CBS’ “FBI,” “60 Minutes” and “Survivor”; the Monday and Tuesday editions of NBC’s “The Voice”; and the Sunday and Monday editions of ABC’s “American Idol.”