“60 Minutes” drew its second-largest audience of the summer, 6.427 million viewers, to be the most-watched prime-time broadcast or cable program for the third time this summer and first time since the week of July 4-10, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen Tuesday.
The CBS news magazine’s largest audience of the summer was 6.748 million viewers, June 5.
“60 Minutes” benefited by following Sunday’s Detroit Lions- Pittsburgh Steelers NFL preseason game. The 40-minute runover of Pittsburgh’s 19-9 victory into prime time in the Eastern and Central time zones, where the bulk of the nation’s population lives, averaged 7.53 million viewers. The runover is not considered a separate program, but is included in the weekly average.
The Tuesday competition episode of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” averaged 6.326 million viewers to finish second after four consecutive first- place finishes and six in the preceding eight weeks. The Wednesday results show was third, averaging 5.548 million viewers, the only other prime-time program to top 5 million viewers between Aug. 22 and Sunday.
CBS had five of the 11 most-watched programs to finish first in the network race for the second consecutive week, averaging 2.88 million. NBC was second, averaging 2.58 million, and ABC third, averaging 2.43 million.
CBS, NBC and ABC each aired 22 hours of prime-time programming.
Fox averaged 1.46 million viewers for its 15 hours, 50 minutes of programming. The CW averaged 380,000 for its 15 hours.
“Celebrity Family Feud” was ABC’s most-watched program for the ninth time in the nine weeks since the conclusion of the network’s coverage of the Stanley Cup Final, averaging 4.562 million viewers, fourth for the second consecutive week and third time in four weeks following a third-place finish the week of July 25-31.
Sunday’s first game matched teams led by professional wrestlers Rey Mysterio and The Miz while retired Los Angeles Dodger pitching star Orel Hershiser and Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner led the teams for the second game.
Fox’s most-watched program was “TMZ Investigates: What Really Happed To Richard Simmons,” 39th for the week, averaging 2.352 million viewers.
The CW’s most-watched program was Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards, which averaged 581,000 viewers, 169th among broadcast programs. Its overall ranking was not available.
The 20 most-watched prime-time programs consisted of “60 Minutes”; two episodes of “America’s Got Talent”; three ABC game shows — “Celebrity Family Feud,” “The $100,000 Pyramid” and “Press Your Luck”; the NBC game show “Password”; the ABC alternative series “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and “The Bachelorette”; three episodes of the CBS alternative series “Big Brother”; reruns of CBS’ “FBI,” “Young Sheldon,” “The Neighborhood” and “FBI: International”; and four editions of the Fox News Channel political talk show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
For the second consecutive week, Fox News Channel had each of the eight most-watched prime-time cable programs and 10 of the top 11 to be the most-watched cable network in prime time for the 12th consecutive week, averaging 2.176 million viewers.
MSNBC was second, averaging 1.274 million viewers, and ESPN third, averaging 1.04 million.
The Aug. 22 edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” was the most-watched prime-time cable program, averaging 3.373 million viewers, 12th overall.
The cable top 20 consisted of 13 Fox News Channel weeknight political talk shows — five broadcasts of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and four each of “Hannity” and “The Ingraham Angle” — and its Sunday political talk show, “Life, Liberty & Levin”; the Aug. 15 editions of the MSNBC news and opinion programs, “The Rachel Maddow Show” and “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell”; ESPN’s coverage of the Atlanta Falcons-New York Jets; the HBO fantasy drama “House of the Dragon”; and the 8-9 p.m. and 9-10 p.m. segments of USA Network’s professional wrestling program, “WWE Raw.”
An episode of the Univision telenovela, “La Herencia, Un Legado de Amor,” was the most-watched Spanish-language program for the second consecutive week, with the Wednesday episode averaging 1.209 million viewers, 72nd among broadcast programs. Its overall ranking was not available.
Univision was the most-watched Spanish-language network for the third consecutive week and 141st time in 143 weeks, averaging 940,000 viewers. Telemundo was second, averaging 840,000, followed by UniMas (400,000), Estrella TV (110,000) and Azteca America (40,000).
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched nightly newscast for the 142nd time in 143 weeks and 194th time in 196 weeks, averaging 7.226 million viewers. “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 5.893 million.
The “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell” was third, averaging 4.318 million.
The limited series “Echoes” was last week’s most-watched program on Netflix, with viewers spending 68.49 million hours watching the mystery thriller’s seven episodes between Aug. 22 and Sunday, their first full week of release, according to figures released Tuesday by the streaming service.
Viewership was up 167.2% from the 25.63 million hours watched the previous week, when the limited series was available for three days and was Netflix’s 10th-most watched program.
“Me Time” was Netflix’s most-watched movie, with viewers spending 59.23 million hours watching the Kevin Hart-Mark Wahlberg comedy in its first three days of release.
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs were CBS’ “60 Minutes”; the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”; ABC’s “Celebrity Family Feud” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos”; the Sunday and Wednesday editions of CBS’ “Big Brother”; NBC’s “Password”; ABC’s “The $100,000 Pyramid”; and CBS’ “FBI.”
