CBS swept the top four spots in the latest prime-time weekly television ratings, even without original episodes of the season’s three most-watched entertainment series, “The Equalizer,” “NCIS” and “FBI,” according to live-plus-same-day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen.
“60 Minutes” averaged 8.481 million viewers to finish first for the fifth time in the 30-week-old 2020-21 television season. “Young Sheldon” was second, averaging 7.463 million viewers, and “Blue Bloods” third, averaging a season-high 6.826 million viewers.
The 56th annual Academy of Country Music Awards was the only other program between April 12 and Sunday to average more than 6 million viewers — 6.276 million — to finish fourth.
With no new original episodes of its “Chicago” franchise, NBC’s singing competition “The Voice” was the most-watched non-CBS program, averaging 5.829 million viewers to finish fifth for the week.
The Sunday edition of “American Idol” was ABC’s most-watched program for the fourth consecutive week, averaging 5.439 million viewers, putting it ninth for the week.
Fox’s most-watched program for the fifth consecutive week was “The Masked Singer,” 12th for the week, averaging 5.169 million viewers.
The martial arts action-adventure series “Kung Fu” was The CW’s most-watched program for the second time in the two weeks it has aired, averaging 1.372 million viewers, 94th among broadcast programs. Its overall rank was not available.
CBS finished first in the network race for the 13th consecutive week and 15th time in the season, averaging 4.45 million viewers. ABC was second for the third time in four weeks, averaging 3.6 million viewers. NBC was third, averaging 3.09 million.
Fox was fourth for the 12th consecutive week, averaging 1.97 million viewers for its 16 hours of programming. The CW again was fifth among the five major English-language broadcast networks, averaging 710,000 viewers for its 12 hours.
CBS, NBC and ABC each aired 22 hours of prime-time programming.
An episode of the Fox News Channel political talk show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” was the most-watched cable program for the second consecutive week, with the Thursday episode averaging 3.221 million viewers, 41st overall.
“Tucker Carlson Tonight” accounted for each of the week’s four most-watched prime-time cable programs, helping Fox News Channel to its third consecutive first-place finish and 11th in the past 12 weeks.
The second- through fourth-place finishers were the same as the previous week. MSNBC averaged 1.484 million viewers, HGTV 1.36 million and CNN 1.053 million.
For the second consecutive week the most-watched Spanish-language program was “Mira quién baila,” Univision’s version of “Dancing with the Stars,” which averaged 1.793 million viewers, 63rd among broadcast programs. Its overall rank was not available.
Univision was the most-watched Spanish-language network for the 72nd consecutive week and 74th time in 75 weeks, averaging 1.43 million viewers. Telemundo was second, averaging 1.07 million viewers, followed by UniMas (610,000), Estrella TV (140,000) and Azteca America (60,000).
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 72nd consecutive week, the 123rd time in 124 weeks and the 175th time in 177 weeks, averaging 8.298 million viewers.
“NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 6.895 million viewers, followed by the “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell,” which averaged 5.177 million viewers.
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs were CBS’ “60 Minutes,” “Young Sheldon,” “Blue Bloods” and the 56th annual Academy of Country Music Awards; NBC’s “The Voice”; CBS’ “Magnum P.I.,” a rerun of “NCIS” and “The United States of Al”; and the Sunday and Monday editions of ABC’s “American Idol.”