CBS winning streak goes on
‘NCIS,’ ‘Big Bang Theory’ and ‘Bull’ help the network beat out its competitors.
CBS aired each of last week’s three most-watched prime-time programs and five of the top six to finish first in the network ratings race for the ninth consecutive week and 20th time in the 33-week-old season.
CBS averaged 7.11 million viewers for its prime-time programming between May 1 and Sunday, according to live-plus-same-day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen.
NBC was second for the eighth time in nine weeks, averaging 5.16 million viewers. ABC was third for the ninth time in the 10 weeks after it aired the Oscars, averaging 4.99 million viewers.
Fox averaged 2.44 million viewers to finish fourth among the broadcast networks for the 13th consecutive week since it aired Super Bowl LI.
The week’s mostwatched program was the CBS drama “NCIS,” which averaged 12.88 million viewers. “The Big Bang Theory” was second, averaging 12.39 million viewers and “Bull” third, which averaged 10.83 million viewers.
ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” was the only other program to average more than 10 million viewers, averaging 10.31 million viewers.
NBA playoff games on TNT and ESPN combined for each of the 11 mostwatched cable programs, topped by TNT’s coverage of Sunday’s Game 4 of the Houston Rockets-San Antonio Spurs Western Conference semifinal, which averaged 4.94 million viewers, 39th overall.
TNT was the mostwatched cable network for the second time in three weeks, averaging 3.24 million viewers.
Fox News Channel was second, averaging 2.07 million after finishing first during four of the previous five weeks and 13 of the past 15.
TNT was first for the week among viewers ages 1849, averaging 1.64 million viewers among the group targeted by Fox, ABC and NBC and coveted by advertisers.
ABC was second, averaging 1.46 million, followed by NBC, which averaged 1.32 million and CBS, which averaged 1.3 million.
“The Big Bang Theory” was the most-watched program among the group, averaging 3.19 million viewers, followed by Game 4 of the Houston-San Antonio series, which averaged 2.57 million and ABC’s coverage of Game 3 of the Golden State Warriors-Utah Jazz Western Conference semifinal Saturday, which averaged 2.44 million.