New comedy’s surprising start
The drama “NCIS” was last week’s most-watched prime-time program, the seventh first-place finish by a CBS show in the seven weeks since ABC’s Oscars telecast.
“NCIS” averaged 11.886 million viewers to be among three prime-time programs between April 15 and Sunday to average more than 9 million viewers, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen Tuesday.
The CBS comedy “The Big Bang Theory” was second for the week, averaging 11.445 million. “Game of Thrones” was third, averaging 10.287 million viewers, a 12.5% drop from the 11.76-million average for its eighth and final season premiere a week earlier.
Viewership for the HBO fantasy drama was the fourth largest among its 69 episodes in live-plus-sameday figures on traditional television, behind the seventh-season finale, the eighth-season premiere and the fifth episode of the seventh season.
The week’s lone premiere on the four major broadcast networks, the ABC comedy “Bless This Mess,” was 28th for the week, sixth among ABC programs and second in its 9:30-10 p.m. time slot April 16, averaging 4.72 million viewers, ABC’s largest audience in the time slot with series programming this season.
“Bless This Mess” had the rare feat of being a premiere that drew more viewers than the program that preceded it. Its viewership was 35.1% larger than the 3.492-million average for the episode of “black-ish” it followed.
CBS had five of the week’s six most-watched programs for the second consecutive week to finish first in the network race for the seventh consecutive week, averaging 5.96 million viewers.
ABC was second for the second consecutive week and fifth time since its Oscar week victory, averaging 4.38 million viewers.
NBC was third for the second consecutive week, averaging 3.6 million viewers.
Fox was fourth for the 14th consecutive week, averaging 2.48 million viewers.