The combination of Super Bowl LVI and seven nights of Winter Olympics programming gave NBC the largest prime-time audience of any network since Fox aired Super Bowl LIV in 2020, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen Tuesday.
NBC averaged 23.33 million viewers for its 22 hours of prime-time programming between Feb. 7 and Sunday. Fox averaged 25.09 million viewers for its 16 hours of programming the week of Jan. 27-Feb. 2, 2020.
An average of 99.178 million viewers watched the Los Angeles Rams’ 23- 20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals on NBC, the largest viewership for a program on any U.S network since Super Bowl LIV averaged 101.324 million viewers.
The total average viewership for Sunday’s game was 112.3 million viewers, the most for any program since 2017 and a 16.5% increase over last year’s game. The average also included 11.2 million watching on the Peacock streaming service and other digital platforms, and 1.907 million watching on Telemundo for the first Spanish-language Super Bowl broadcast in the United States.
The streaming audience was the largest for an NFL game.
Following the 15-minute Super Bowl postgame show that averaged 54.065 million viewers, 97 minutes of Olympics coverage that ran until 12:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time averaged 21.277 million viewers, the most for a prime- time Olympics telecast since Feb. 11, 2018, when the first Sunday of NBC’s coverage of the Pyeongchang Games averaged 22.676 million viewers.
The week’s most-watched non-sports prime-time program was the Fox procedural drama, “9-1-1: Lone Star,” 10th for the week, averaging 5.177 million viewers.
The four episodes of “Jeopardy! National College Championship” were ABC’s four most-watched programs, topped by the Friday episode, which averaged 4.6 million viewers, 11th for the week.
CBS’ most-watched program was “Super Bowl Greatest Commercials: All- Time Classics,” 12th for the week, averaging 4.595 million viewers. CBS also had the week’s most-watched comedy, a rerun of “Young Sheldon” that was 15th for the week, averaging 4.289 million viewers, the most-watched program beginning at 10 p.m., a rerun of “FBI: Most Wanted” that averaged 3.423 million viewers, 23rd for the week, and the most-watched first-season program, a rerun of the comedy “Ghosts,” 27th for the week averaging 3.347.
“Jeopardy! National College Championship” helped ABC finish second for the week, averaging 2.75 million viewers, followed by CBS, which averaged 2.64 million. NBC, ABC and CBS each aired 22 hours of prime-time programming.
Fox averaged 1.81 million viewers for its 15 hours of programming. The CW averaged 340,000 for its 14 hours of programming. Its most-watched program was the special, “World’s Funniest Animals: Valentine’s Day,” which averaged 599,000 viewers, 160th among broadcast programs. Its overall ranking was not available.
The 20 most watched prime-time programs consisted of NBC’s coverage of Super Bowl LVI and its 15-minute postgame show; seven Olympics programs on NBC; Fox’s “9-1-1: Lone Star”; the four episodes of ABC’s “Jeopardy! National College Championship”; four CBS entertainment programs; the Thursday edition of the Fox News Channel political talk show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight”; and ABC’s coverage of the Los Angeles Lakers’ 117-115 loss to the Golden State Warriors Saturday.
For the third consecutive week, the five editions of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” were the most-watched cable programs. The Monday edition was the most- watched, averaging 3.673 million viewers, 19th for the week.
Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network for the fourth consecutive week following four consecutive second-place finishes behind ESPN, averaging 2.304 million viewers. Winter Olympics coverage enabled USA Network to finish second for the second consecutive week, averaging 1.478 million viewers. MSNBC was third for the sixth consecutive week, averaging 988,000.
CNN was 18th, one spot lower than the previous week, averaging 476,000 viewers, 12.8% less than the 546,000 viewers it averaged the previous week.
CNN also trailed Hallmark Channel (889,000), HGTV (873,000), ESPN (714,000), History (736,000), Discovery (642,000), TNT (619,000), TBS (610,000), Food Network (596,000), TLC (574,000), Investigation Discovery (555,000), Lifetime (533,000), Travel Channel (501,000), A&E (489,000) and SYFY (480,000).
The list of the top 20 prime time cable programs was not available. The top 18 consisted of 15 Fox News Channel political talk shows — five broadcasts each of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” “Hannity” and “The Ingraham Angle”; the Hallmark Channel movie “The Wedding Veil Unveiled”; History’s long-running chronicle of a search for treasure on a Canadian island, “The Curse of Oak Island”; and USA Network’s Monday Olympics coverage.
The most-watched prime-time Spanish-language program for the third time in four weeks was an episode of the Univision telenovela “Vencer El Pasado.” The Monday episode averaged 1.91 million viewers, 64th overall and one spot ahead of Telemundo’s Super Bowl LVI broadcast.
Univision was the most-watched Spanish-language network for the 115th consecutive week and 117th time in 118 weeks, averaging 1.41 million viewers. Telemundo was second, averaging 1.27 million viewers, followed by UniMas (540,000), 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 114th time in 115 weeks and 166th time in 168 weeks, averaging 8.473 million viewers.
“NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 6.743 million viewers, followed by the “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell,” which averaged 5.149 million viewers.
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs were NBC’s coverage of Super Bowl LVI and its 15-minute postgame show; NBC’s Sunday, Thursday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Saturday Winter Olympics coverage; and Fox’s “9-1-1: Lone Star.”
