A ‘Talent’ for No. 1
The NBC summer hit was in a familiar spot last week, as was ‘60 Minutes’ for CBS.
The most-watched prime-time program for the sixth time in the last seven weeks was NBC’s “America’s Got Talent,” while CBS’ “60 Minutes” was second for the fifth time during that span.
“America’s Got Talent” averaged 11.68 million viewers, the most for any primetime program since its June 19 edition, finishing first among prime-time broadcast and cable programs airing between July 23 and Sunday, according to live-plus-same-day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen.
The only interruption to the streak came during the week of July 2-8 when NBC aired a rerun because of the customarily lower television viewership on Independence Day eve. “60 Minutes” finished first that week.
“America’s Got Talent” has been the most-watched entertainment program every week that an original episode has aired both this summer and last summer. “60 Minutes” was the week’s only other program to average more than 6 million viewers, averaging 7.06 million.
NBC was the mostwatched network for the fourth consecutive week, averaging 4.3 million viewers.
NBC’s most-watched programs outside of “America’s Got Talent” were the 10 p.m. Tuesday “World of Dance” episode that followed “Talent” and was sixth for the week, averaging 5.64 million viewers, and “American Ninja Warrior,” 11th for the week, averaging 5.08 million.
CBS averaged 3.77 million viewers to finish second for the fourth consecutive week after three consecutive first-place finishes. CBS had three of the week’s five mostwatched programs: “60 Minutes”; the Wednesday edition of “Big Brother,” fourth for the week, averaging 5.70 million viewers; and a rerun of “The Big Bang Theory,” fifth for the week, averaging 5.65 million.
ABC averaged 3.08 million viewers to finish third for the seventh consecutive week after back-to-back victories when it aired the NBA Finals. ABC’s most-watched programs were “The Bachelorette,” third for the week averaging 5.92 million; and a rerun of “Celebrity Family Feud,” 13th for the week, averaging 4.80 million.
Fox finished fourth among the major broadcast networks for the 27th consecutive week, averaging 2.05 million viewers. Fox’s most-watched program was “MasterChef,” 21st for the week, averaging 3.71 million viewers.
are the combined rankings for national prime-time network and cable television last week (July 23-29), 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.