The viewership for the second-to-last episodes of CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory” and HBO’s “Game of Thrones” finished 1-2 among last week’s prime-time programs, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen.
“The Big Bang Theory” averaged 12.487 million viewers, the eighth time in nine weeks a CBS program has finished first in the weekly ratings.
“Game of Thrones” averaged 11.795 million viewers, officially the third-most among fantasy drama’s 71 episodes behind the seventh-season finale, which averaged 12.072 million viewers, and the previous week’s episode, which averaged 12.017 million.
Viewership figures for “Game of Thrones” and other programs do not include viewing on a streamed basis.
CBS had five of the six most-watched prime-time programs airing between April 29 and Sunday, including the other two to average more than 9 million viewers, “NCIS,” which averaged 11.73 million, and “Young Sheldon,” which averaged 10.737 million.
CBS was the most-watched network for the 10th consecutive week, 15th time in 16 weeks and 21st in the 32-week-old 2018-19 prime-time television season, averaging 5.96 million viewers.
ABC returned to second after a one-week absence, averaging 4.64 million viewers. Its most-watched program was “American Idol,” 10th for the week, averaging 7.485 million viewers.
NBC was third, averaging 4.55 million viewers. Its most-watched program was the Billboard Music Awards, seventh for the week and first among programs airing on May 1, averaging 8.019 million viewers.
Despite the move from Sunday, when total television viewing is higher, viewership was up 1.9% percent from last year’s ceremony, which averaged 7.873 million viewers, a rare example of a year-to-year increase for any form of programming as official viewership for essentially all forms of programming has dropped because of the rise in viewership of streamed programming.
Fox was fourth for the 16th consecutive week, averaging 2.64 million viewers for its 15 hours of programming. Its most-watched show was “9-1-1,” 25th for the week, averaging 5.493 million viewers.
CBS, ABC and NBC all broadcast 22 hours of prime-time programming for ratings purposes.
Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network for the fifth consecutive week and 15th time in 16 weeks, averaging 2.442 million viewers.
TNT was second for the third consecutive week, thanks again to NBA playoffs coverage, averaging 2.362 million viewers. MSNBC was third, averaging 1.705 million viewers.
The most-watched Spanish-language prime-time program was the Monday episode of the Telemundo telenovela “La Reina del Sur,” which averaged 2.219 million viewers, 100th among the week’s broadcast and cable programs.
Telemundo averaged 1.36 million viewers to be the most-watched Spanish-language network for the third consecutive week after 24 consecutive second-place finishes behind Univision. Univision finished second, averaging 1.31 million viewers, followed by UniMas, which averaged 360,000, Estrella TV, which averaged 230,000, and Azteca America, which averaged 50,000.
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 23rd consecutive week and 74th time in the past 75 weeks, averaging 8.432 million viewers.
The “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 7.61 million viewers.
The “CBS Evening News” averaged 5.692 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’ “The Big Bang Theory”; HBO’s “Game of Thrones”; CBS’ “NCIS,” “Young Sheldon,” “FBI” and “Blue Bloods”; NBC’s coverage of the Billboard Music Awards; CBS’ “Mom” and “60 Minutes”; and ABC’s “American Idol.”
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