GOP debate, ‘Grease’ lead
Viewers continue to flock to live events, with the Republican presidential debate on Fox News Channel and “Grease: Live!” on Fox finishing as the two mostwatched programs of the week from Jan. 25 to Sunday.
Thursday’s debate averaged 12.47 million viewers, and “Grease: Live!” 12.21 million, according to live-plus-same day figures released by Nielsen on Tuesday.
The viewership was the second-smallest among the seven Republican debates of the 2016 campaign, ahead of only the Jan. 14 debate on the Fox Business Network, which averaged 11.09 million.
The first debate, which ran Aug. 6 on Fox News Channel, averaged 24 million viewers, the most for a nonsports program in cable television history.
The Democratic town hall on CNN on Jan. 25 averaged 3.2 million viewers, 12th among cable programs and 77th overall.
“Grease: Live!” drew more viewers than both of NBC’s last two live musicals, “The Wiz Live!,” which averaged 11.5 million on Dec. 3, and “Peter Pan Live!,” which averaged 9.21 million on Dec. 4, 2014, but fewer than the 18.62 million average on Dec. 5, 2013, for “The Sound of Music Live!,” the first full-scale musical made for television and performed live since 1957.
CBS had the other four programs to average more than 10 million viewers in the week, making it the mostwatched network for the 13th time during the 19-week-old season, averaging 7.54 million viewers.
CBS’ most-watched program was a rerun of “NCIS,” which averaged 11.98 million viewers, third overall.
Fox was second, averaging 6.79 million, followed by NBC, which averaged 4.92 million, and ABC, which averaged 3.92 million.
Fox had five of the week’s six most-watched programs by viewers ages 18 to 49, finishing first for the second consecutive week among the group targeted by networks and advertisers, averaging 2.79 million viewers.
CBS was second, averaging 1.57 million, followed by NBC, which averaged 1.49 million, and ABC, which averaged 1.34 million.
“Grease: Live!” was first among the group, averaging 5.48 million viewers, followed by “The X-Files,” which averaged 4.08 million, ESPN’s coverage of the NFL’s Pro Bowl (3.5 million), the Wednesday episode of “American Idol” (3.18 million), the premiere of “Lucifer” (3.08 million) and the Thursday episode of “American Idol” (2.95 million).
“Lucifer,” the week’s only premiere on the four major networks, averaged 7.16 million viewers to finish third in its Monday 9-10 p.m. time slot behind the CBS drama “Scorpion” (10.69 million) and the second hour of the ABC dating series “The Bachelor” (7.73 million) and 26th for the week.
“Lucifer” retained 74% of the audience of “The XFiles” episode that preceded it. Retention of the audience of the program preceding it is among the factors network executives evaluate when deciding whether to renew a series.
Ratings for premieres are often unrepresentative of how the series will fare due to the heavy promotion they receive and because viewers who are interested in the concept may not return for future episodes.
are the combined rankings for national prime-time network and cable television last week (Jan. 25-31) as compiled by Nielsen. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish during its scheduled telecast or on a playback device the same day. Nielsen estimates there are 289 million potential viewers in the U.S. ages 2 and older. Viewership is listed in millions.