Fox’s coverage of the “Field of Dreams” game drew the largest audience for a regular-season Major League Baseball game since 2005 and finished third among last week’s prime-time programs, according to live-plus-same-day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen.
The Chicago White Sox 9-8 victory over the New York Yankees last Thursday near where the 1989 movie was filmed in Dyersville, Iowa, averaged 5.851 million viewers.
NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” was first for the fifth time in the nine weeks it has aired this summer, averaging 7.141 million viewers. An edition of the CBS News magazine “60 Minutes,” with three previously broadcast segments that were updated for the broadcast, was second among prime-time programs between Aug. 9 and Sunday, averaging 6.509 million viewers.
The Aug. 11 premiere of the ABC News documentary series “Superstar,” which profiles “mavericks who shaped American culture,” was 21st among the week’s prime-time broadcast and cable programs, and first among programs beginning at 10 p.m., averaging 2.881 million viewers.
The week’s other premiere on the five major English-language broadcast networks, Fox’s reboot of the 1977-84 ABC series “Fantasy Island,” was fourth in its 9 p.m. Tuesday time slot and 55th for the week, averaging 2.053 million viewers.
ABC edged NBC, 2.69 million to 2.65 million, to be the week’s most-watched network. CBS was third, averaging 2.4 million while Fox was fourth, averaging 2.2 million for its 16 hours of prime-time programming.
ABC, NBC and CBS each broadcast 22 hours of prime-time programming.
The CW again was fifth among the five major English-language broadcast networks, averaging 500,000 viewers for its 12 hours of programming. The crime drama “Walker” was its most-watched program, averaging 1.098 million viewers, 105th among broadcast programs. Its overall rank was not available.
Four episodes of the Fox News Channel political talk show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” topped the week’s prime-time cable programs, led by the Monday episode, which averaged 3.124 million viewers, 17th for the week.
At least four episodes of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” have topped the cable ratings for four consecutive weeks, including the week of July 26-Aug. 1 when it swept the top five spots.
Fox News Channel was first among cable networks for the sixth consecutive week, averaging 2.196 million viewers. MSNBC was second, averaging 1.288 million viewers and HGTV third, averaging 1.142 million.
CNN was seventh, averaging 782,000, also trailing TLC (1.052 million), Hallmark Channel (829,000) and History (802,000).
The 20 most-watched prime-time cable programs consisted of 14 Fox News Channel political talk shows — five episodes each of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and “Hannity” and four of “The Ingram Angle ” — five broadcasts of the MSNBC news and opinion program “The Rachel Maddow Show” and the TLC documentary series, “90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?”
For the second consecutive week, the most-watched prime-time Spanish language program was the Monday episode of the Univision telenovela, “Si nos dejan” which averaged 1.686 million viewers, 49th among broadcast programs. Its overall rank is not available.
Univision was the most-watched Spanish-language network for the 89th consecutive week and 91st time in 92 weeks, averaging 1.27 million viewers. Telemundo was second, averaging 990,000 viewers, followed by UniMas (270,000), Estrella TV (130,000) and Azteca America (40,000).
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 89th consecutive week, the 140th time in 141 weeks and the 192nd time in 194 weeks, averaging 7.849 million viewers.
“NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 6.513 million viewers, followed by the “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell,” which averaged 4.662 million viewers.
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs were the Tuesday edition of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”; CBS’ “60 Minutes”; Fox’s coverage of Major League Baseball’s “Field of Dreams” game; the Wednesday edition of “America’s Got Talent”; ABC’s “The Bachelorette” and “Celebrity Family Feud”; the Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday editions of CBS’ “Big Brother”; and ABC’s “The $100,000 Pyramid.”