The combination of “America’s Got Talent,” “Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular” and the Big Machine Hand Sanitizer 400 auto race gave NBC its first weekly prime-time ratings victory since December.
“America’s Got Talent” was the most-watched prime-time program for the sixth time in the six full weeks of television’s summer season, averaging 8.441 million viewers, its least of the season.
The week’s only other prime-time program to average more than 6 million viewers was the CBS News magazine “60 Minutes,” which averaged 6.09 million viewers. All three segments were previously broadcast and updated for Sunday’s broadcast.
“Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular” was fifth for the week, averaging 4.761 million viewers. Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Big Machine Hand Sanitizer 400 was eighth for the week, averaging 4.343 million viewers.
Fox News Channel political talk shows accounted for four of the week’s top 10 programs, topped by Friday’s “The Ingraham Angle,” third for the week averaging 5.7 million viewers. It included the first 10 minutes of President Donald Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore.
The Friday and Wednesday editions of “Hannity” were seventh and ninth for the week, averaging 4.414 million and 4.333 million viewers. The Monday broadcast of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” was 10th, averaging 4.288 million.
NBC averaged 3.75 million viewers for its prime-time programming between June 29 and Sunday, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen Wednesday. Fox News Channel averaged 3.346 million viewers to finish second after back-to-back victories. CBS was third, averaging 3.340 million.
ABC was fourth, averaging 2.27 million viewers. It had two programs among the top 44 — reruns of “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” 11th for the week averaging 4.268 million, and “Celebrity Family Feud,” 44th for the week, averaging 3.247 million.
Fox was fourth among broadcast networks and seventh overall, averaging 1.29 million viewers for its 15 hours of prime-time programming. Its most-watched program was a rerun of the procedural drama “9-1-1,” which averaged 2.423 million viewers, 72nd for the week.
MSNBC was second among cable networks for the fourth consecutive week, averaging 1.932 million viewers. CNN was third for the fourth consecutive week, averaging 1.562 million.
An episode of the Univision telenovela “Amor eterno” was the most-watched Spanish-language prime-time program for the 14th consecutive week, with the June 29 episode averaging 2.091 million viewers, 53rd among broadcast programs. Its overall rank was not available.
Univision was the most-watched Spanish-language network for the 31st consecutive week and 33rd time in 34 weeks, averaging 1.39 million viewers.
Telemundo was second, averaging 820,000 viewers, followed by UniMas (390,000), Estrella TV (150,000) and Azteca America (40,000).
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 31st consecutive week, the 82nd time in 83 weeks and the 134th time in 136 weeks, averaging 8.978 million viewers.
“NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 7.742 million viewers, followed by the “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell,” which averaged 5.398 million viewers.
The averages for all three networks did not include their Friday newscasts.
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs were NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”; CBS’ “60 Minutes”; the Friday edition of Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle”; a rerun of CBS’ “NCIS”; “Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular” on NBC; a rerun of CBS’ “FBI”; the Friday broadcast of “Hannity” on Fox News Channel; NBC’s coverage of the Big Machine Hand Sanitizer 400 NASCAR Cup Series race; the Wednesday broadcast of “Hannity”; and the June 29 broadcast of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News Channel.