Series end on ratings highs

Two long-running series - CBS drama “Criminal Minds” and ABC’s “Fresh Off the Boat” — ended their runs last week with modest bumps in the ratings.

The investigators on “Criminal Minds” concluded their 15th and last season by chasing a psychopath who liked to cut off the faces of his victims. The last episode reached 5.4 million viewers, up 12% from its season average, the Nielsen company said.

The Huang family finished the sixth season of “Fresh Off the Boat” with a sweetly nostalgic episode that included a peek at the future for the characters. Its last episode was seen by 2.4 million people, or 6 per cent more than the season average, Nielsen said.

Both shows had one oddity in common. They each ended with two separate episodes where the second, the actual finale, had fewer viewers than the first. “Fresh Off the Boat” had three million for its first half hour.

The numbers will increase when delayed viewing is added in.

Television’s week was dominated by the Democratic presidential debate, which was seen by 19.8 million people on either NBC or MSNBC. It’s the most-watched Democratic nomination debate ever.

CBS won the week with an average of 6.1 million viewers in prime time. NBC had 4.4 million viewers, ABC had 4.2 million, Fox had 3 million, Univision had 1.7 million, ION Television had 1.4 million, Telemundo had 1 million and the CW had 650,000.

Fox News Channel was the most popular cable network, averaging 3.01 million viewers in prime time. MSNBC had 2.17 million, HGTV had 1.18 million, TLC had 1.17 million and Discovery had 1.12 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” won the evening news ratings race, averaging nine million viewers.