The hybrid version of “The Little Mermaid” interspersing live musical performances with a broadcast of the original animated film drew ABC’s largest audience of the seven-week-old prime-time television season and was last week’s most-watched non-NFL program among adults under 50, according to live-plus-same-day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen.
“The Wonderful World of Disney presents The Little Mermaid Live!” averaged 9.02 million viewers to finish seventh among prime-time broadcast and cable programs airing between Nov. 4 and Sunday.
The only programs “The Wonderful World of Disney presents The Little Mermaid Live!” trailed were three NFL games, an NFL pregame show, an NFL postgame show and the CBS action drama, “NCIS.”
ABC’s previous most-watched program of the season was Michigan’s 45-14 victory over Notre Dame on “Saturday Night Football,” on Oct. 26 which averaged 6.754 million viewers.
“The Wonderful World of Disney presents The Little Mermaid Live!” was the week’s most-watched non-NFL program and sixth overall among viewers ages 18-49, averaging 3.366 million viewers among the group targeted by ABC, NBC and Fox and coveted by advertisers.
NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” averaged its second-largest audience of the season, 22.988 million viewers, the seventh time in the 10-week NFL season “Sunday Night Football” has been the week’s most-watched prime-time program.
Only the New Orleans Saints 12-10 victory over Dallas on Sept. 29, which averaged 24.108 million viewers, topped the viewership for the Minnesota Vikings’ 28-24 victory over the Cowboys.
“NCIS” was the most-watched non-sports program for the fifth time in the six weeks it has aired an original episode, averaging 10.89 million viewers, sixth overall.
CBS’ “Young Sheldon” was the most-watched comedy for the sixth time in the six weeks it has aired an original episode, averaging 8.839 million viewers, ninth overall.
“The Unicorn” was the most-watched new series, averaging 5.894 million viewers, 32nd overall. CBS has had the most-watched new series each week of the season.
NBC was the most-watched network for the third time in the season, averaging 7.07 million viewers. Its most-watched program outside of its NFL programming was hourlong Tuesday edition of “The Voice,” 12th for the week, averaging 8.157 million viewers.
Fox was second after back-to-back victories from its World Series coverage, averaging 6.74 million viewers for its 17 hours, four minutes of prime-time programming, bolstered by the 25.323-million average for its 57-minute runover of its Sunday afternoon NFL coverage into prime time in the Eastern and Central time zones.
The runover is not considered a separate program, but is included in the weekly average.
NFL programming also accounted for Fox’s three most-watched programs — its seven-minute NFL postgame show Sunday, which was third for the week, averaging 15.713 million viewers, its “Thursday Night Football” game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Oakland Raiders, fifth for the week, averaging 13.851 million viewers, and 16-minute “Thursday Night Football” pregame show, 11th for the week, averaging 8.272 million viewers.
Fox’s most-watched non-NFL program was “The Masked Singer,” 20th for the week, averaging 7.115 million viewers.
CBS was third for the week, averaging 5.84 million viewers. ABC was fourth for the seventh time in the season, averaging 4.25 million.
CBS and ABC did not have any prime-time NFL programming to bolster viewership.
CBS, NBC and ABC each broadcast 22 hours of prime-time programming.
The most-watched cable program was the Dallas Cowboys 37-18 victory over the New York Giants on ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” which averaged a season-high 14.724 million viewers, fourth for the week.
“Monday Night Football” has been the most-watched cable program for each of its first nine weeks of the 2019 season.
ESPN was the most-watched cable network in prime time, averaging 3.056 million viewers. Fox News Channel was second after back-to-back first-place finishes, averaging 2.594 million. MSNBC was third, averaging 1.89 million.
An episode of the Univision telenovela “Amor Eterno” was the most-watched Spanish-language program for the second consecutive week, with the Tuesday episode averaging 1.698 million viewers, 85th among broadcast programming. Its overall position was not available.
Telemundo was the most-watched Spanish-language network for the fourth consecutive week after finishing second behind Univision for eight of the previous nine weeks, averaging 1.27 million viewers. Univision was second, averaging 1.2 million viewers, followed by UniMas, which averaged 470,000, Estrella TV, which averaged 280,000 viewers, and Azteca America, which averaged 60,000.
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 50th consecutive week and 101st time in the past 102 weeks, averaging 8.979 million viewers.
The “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 8.192 million viewers. The “CBS Evening News” averaged 5.735 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” and its 10-minute kickoff show; Fox’s seven-minute NFL postgame show Sunday; ESPN’s “Monday Night Football”; Fox’s “Thursday Night Football”; CBS’ “NCIS”; ABC’s “The Wonderful World of Disney presents The Little Mermaid Live!”; the 22-minute third segment of NBC’s “Football Night in America”; and CBS’ “Young Sheldon” and “FBI.”
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