College football accounted for last week’s two most-watched prime-time programs behind NBC’s perennial summer ratings champion “America’s Got Talent,” according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen Wednesday.
NBC’s coverage of Saturday’s Notre Dame-Michigan game averaged 7.091 million viewers to finish third among prime-time programs airing between Aug. 27 and Monday. Notre Dame’s 24-17 victory was the week’s most-watched program among viewers ages 18-49, averaging 2.72 million viewers among the group targeted by NBC, ABC and Fox and coveted by advertisers.
LSU’s 33-17 victory over Miami Sunday on ABC was fourth overall, averaging 6.553 million viewers, and second among viewers 18-49, averaging 2.613 million.
The two “America’s Got Talent” episodes were the week’s only other programs to average more than 6 million viewers.
The Aug. 28 “America’s Got Talent” competition episode averaged 10.782 million viewers enabling the series to finish atop the prime-time ratings for the 11th consecutive week it has aired an original episode.
The results show averaged 9.906 million viewers, NBC’s largest non-Olympics audience in the Wednesday 8-9 p.m. time slot since “America’s Got Talent’s” Sept. 20, 2017, season finale.
The results show has finished second three times in the three weeks it has aired this summer.
NBC had six of the week’s 10 most-watched programs, helping the network average 5.1 million viewers, the largest audience for any network since the week of June 4-10 when ABC carried the concluding two games of the NBA Finals.
NBC has been the most-watched network for nine consecutive weeks.
ABC averaged 3.69 million viewers to finish second, after 10 third-place finishes in the previous 11 weeks.
CBS was third, averaging 3.51 million viewers. Its most-watched program was the news magazine “60 Minutes,” sixth for the week averaging 5.84 million viewers.
Fox finished fourth among the major broadcast networks for the 32nd consecutive week, averaging 1.67 million viewers for its 16 hours of prime-time programming.
Fox’s most-watched program was “MasterChef,” 23rd for the week, averaging 3.562 million viewers.
NBC, ABC and CBS all aired 22 hours of prime-time programming for ratings purposes.
Three episodes of the Fox News Channel opinion talk show “Hannity” topped the week’s cable ratings, led by the Aug. 28 episode, which averaged 3.415 million viewers, 24th overall.
Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network for the 13th consecutive week, averaging 2.216 million viewers.
MSNBC was second, averaging 1.807 million viewers and USA Network third, averaging 1.359 million viewers.
The most-watched Spanish-language prime-time program was the Thursday episode of the Univision drama anthology “La Rosa de Guadalupe” which averaged 1.824 million viewers to finish 63rd among broadcast programs. Its overall rank was not available.
Univision edged Telemundo, 1.18 million viewers-1.17 million to finish first among the Spanish-language networks, a week after tying for first.
UniMas was third, averaging 340,000 viewers, followed by Estrella TV, which averaged 240,000, and Azteca America, which averaged 90,000.
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 40th consecutive week and 51st of past 52, averaging 7.989 million viewers.
The “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 7.608 million viewers.
The “CBS Evening News” averaged 5.517 million viewers for its Monday through Wednesday and Friday broadcasts. It has finished third each week since the week of Sept. 25-29, 2006.
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs were the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”; NBC’s coverage of the Notre Dame-Michigan game; ABC’s coverage of the LSU-Miami game; NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior”; CBS’ “60 Minutes” the Wednesday episode of “Big Brother” and “NCIS”; NBC’s “World of Dance” and “Dateline Classic.”