Prime-time viewership of TNT increased 61% from the previous week thanks to coverage of the restart of the NBA season after a more than four-month interruption because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen Tuesday.
The Los Angeles Lakers 103-101 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers that concluded Thursday’s doubleheader averaged 3.395 million viewers, 15th among cable programs airing between July 27 and Sunday and 30th overall
The first game, a 106-104 victory by the Utah Jazz over the New Orleans Pelicans, averaged 2.112 million viewers. Its overall ranking was not available.
TNT averaged 1.251 million viewers, fifth among cable networks. It averaged 629,000 a week earlier, 14th among cable networks.
For the second consecutive week the most-watched prime-time program was an edition of “60 Minutes” with three repeat segments updated for the rebroadcast and the other two prime-time programs to average more than 5 million viewers were NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” and a rerun of CBS’ “NCIS.”
“60 Minutes” averaged 7.132 million viewers, “America’s Got Talent,” 6.12 million and “NCIS” 5.078.
The 1-3 finish by “60 Minutes” and “NCIS” helped CBS to its fourth consecutive first-place finish in the network race, 22nd in 27 weeks and 27th in the 45-week-old 2019-20 season, averaging 3.23 million viewers.
Fox News Channel was second, averaging 3.065 million, followed by NBC, which averaged 2.81 million, and ABC, which averaged 2.34 million.
Fox averaged 1.55 million for its 16 hours, 18 minutes of prime-time programming, fourth among the broadcast networks and sixth overall. Its most-watched program was its second “Fox Saturday Baseball” telecast of the coronavirus-delayed season.
The regional telecasts of the New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox and Angels-Houston Astros games averaged 2.068 million viewers, 50th among the week’s broadcast programs and fourth among Saturday programs. Its overall rank was not available. Viewership was 25.9 percent less than the 2.79 million average for the previous week, a 9-2 victory by the Washington Nationals over the Yankees.
With less first-run programming because of the coronavirus pandemic, the combined four-network prime-time viewership was down 14.7% from the corresponding week one year ago when “America’s Got Talent” was the week’s most-watched broadcast program, averaging 7.975 million viewers, the season finale of the ABC dating series “The Bachelorette,” averaged 7.523 million and NBC’s coverage of the NFL Hall of Fame Game averaged 5.346 million viewers.
ABC’s viewership was down 34.8%, NBC’s 23.4% and Fox’s 8.3% while CBS’ was up 21.3%. Millions of potential CBS viewers were not able to watch the network last year because its owned-and-operated stations in more than a dozen markets, including Los Angeles, were absent from DirecTV and other AT&T-owned television packages because the two sides were unable to reach an agreement to allow their continued carriage.
Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network for the 28th consecutive week, averaging 3.065 million viewers. It had each of the week’s seven most-watched cable programs and nine of the top 10 — four episodes each of the political talk shows “Hannity” and “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and the Tuesday edition of “The Ingraham Angle.”
The week’s most-watched cable program was Tuesday’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” which averaged 4.524 million viewers, fourth overall. The overall Top 10 included three episodes of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and two of “Hannity.”
MSNBC was second among cable networks for the eighth consecutive week, averaging 1.877 million viewers. CNN was third for the eighth consecutive week, averaging 1.357 million.
An episode of the Univision telenovela “Te doy la vida,” was the most-watched Spanish-language prime-time program for the second consecutive week, with the Tuesday episode averaging 2.13 million viewers, 48th among broadcast programs. Its overall rank was not available.
Univision was the most-watched Spanish-language network for the 35th consecutive week and 37th time in 38 weeks, averaging 1.46 million viewers.
Telemundo was second, averaging 910,000 viewers, followed by UniMas, which averaged 340,000, Estrella TV, which averaged 210,000 and Azteca America which averaged 30,000.
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 35th consecutive week, the 86th time in 87 weeks and the 138th time in 140 weeks, averaging 8.631 million viewers.
“NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 7.435 million viewers, followed by the “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell,” which averaged 5.282 million viewers.
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs was a rerun of CBS’ `60 Minutes”; NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”; a rerun of CBS’ “NCIS”; the Tuesday editions of Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tuesday evening” and “Hannity”; a rerun of CBS’ “Young Sheldon”; the Thursday edition of “Tucker Carlson Tuesday evening”; a rerun of CBS’ “FBI”; and the Wednesday edition of “Tucker Carlson Tuesday evening.”