NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” returned to the top of the prime-time ratings after a five-week absence, while “60 Minutes” was the week’s only other prime-time program to top 4 million viewers.
“America’s Got Talent” averaged 5.676 million viewers, its largest audience since June 27 when it averaged 5.97 million viewers, to finish first for the third time this summer, according to live-plus-same-day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen.
Each of the summer’s 10 original episodes of “America’s Got Talent” has been the week’s most-watched entertainment program.
Since the last time “America’s Got Talent” finished first, the first- place finishers were “60 Minutes”, Fox’s coverage of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game, the combined viewership for Fox’s English-language coverage and Telemundo’s Spanish-language coverage of the United States-Vietnam 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup game, Fox’s coverage of the United States- Netherlands game 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup game and NBC’s coverage of the NFL Hall of Fame Game.
“60 Minutes” averaged 4.43 million viewers. The edition with three segments that aired previously and were updated for Sunday’s broadcast followed a 73-minute runover of the network’s coverage of the PGA Tour’s FedEx St. Jude Championship which averaged 5.41 million viewers.
The runover is not considered a separate program but is included in the weekly average.
CBS finished first in the network race for the seventh time in eight weeks, averaging 2.65 million viewers. NBC averaged 2.18 million viewers to finish second, a week after being lifted to first by the NFL Hall of Fame Game.
ABC was third for the second consecutive week after back-to-back second-place finishes and three in four weeks, averaging 2.09 million viewers. Its most-watched program was “Celebrity Family Feud,” third for the week averaging 3.863 million viewers.
CBS, NBC and ABC all aired 22 hours of prime-time programming.
Fox averaged 1.4 million viewers for its 16 hours, 21 minutes of prime- time programming. Its most-watched program was its regionalized coverage of “Baseball Night in America,” which averaged 2.305 million viewers, 34th for the week.
The CW averaged 300,000 viewers for its 14 hours of programming.
Its most-watched program was the Canadian drama “Family Law,” which averaged 462,000 viewers, 181st among broadcast programs, one spot behind the 10 p.m. Sunday broadcast of “The Best of The Ed Sullivan Show,” on MeTV which averaged 471,000. Their overall ranks were not available.
The CBS musical game show “Superfan” was the most-watched of the two series premieres, with the episode where five of LL Cool J’s most devoted supporters competed to be crowned his biggest fan averaging 1.395 million viewers, 65th among broadcast programs.
“Fight to Survive,” billed by The CW as “a social experiment in primitive survivalism with a competitive twist,” averaged 353,000 viewers, 195th among broadcast programs, one spot behind the 1951 film “Saddle Legion” on the Westerns-oriented network Grit, which averaged 358,000.
The overall ranks for all three programs were not available.
The 20 most-watched prime-time programs consisted of the NBC alternative series “America’s Got Talent” and “American Ninja Warrior”; “60 Minutes”; reruns of eight episodes of CBS scripted series; five episodes of ABC alternative series; three episodes of the CBS alternative series “Big Brother”; and the Aug. 8 edition of the MSNBC political talk show “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the most-watched cable program, averaging 2.749 million viewers, 18th overall.
Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network for the seventh consecutive week and eighth time in nine weeks, averaging 1.754 million viewers. It was first among cable news networks for the ninth consecutive week and 129th time in 130 weeks.
MSNBC averaged 1.41 million viewers to finish second among cable networks for the fourth consecutive week. HGTV was third for the second consecutive week,
CNN was eighth for the week, averaging 581,000.
The cable prime-time top 20 consisted of 12 Fox News Channel weeknight political talk shows — four broadcasts each of “Jesse Watters Primetime,” “Hannity” and “Gutfeld!”; five MSNBC political talk shows — four editions of “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” and the Aug. 7 edition of “The Rachel Maddow Show”; the 8 p.m. Sunday edition of the western “1883: A Yellowstone Origin Story” on Paramount Network and seven minutes of interstitial programming leading into the 9:13 p.m. episode; and the first hourlong segment of the USA Network professional wrestling program “WWE Raw.”
Netflix’s most-watched title was the Gal Gadot-starring spy action thriller “Heart of Stone,” which was watched for 69.6 million hours the first three days it was available.
The second season of the legal drama “The Lincoln Lawyer” was Netflix’s most-watched series for the second consecutive week, with viewers spending 42.4 million hours watching the 10 episodes.
For the second consecutive week, an episode of the Univision telenovela “Tierra de Esperanza” was the most-watched Spanish-language program with the Thursday episode averaging 1.586 million viewers, 53rd among broadcast programs. Its overall rank was not available.
Univision was the most-watched Spanish-language network for the 53rd consecutive week and 191st time in 193 weeks, averaging 1.09 million viewers. Telemundo was second, averaging 680,000 viewers, followed by UniMas (270,000) and Estrella TV (80,000).
ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” was the most-watched nightly newscast for the 245th time in 246 weeks, averaging 7.339 million viewers. “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was second, averaging 5.976 million viewers.
The “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell” was third, averaging 4.342 million viewers.
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs were NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”; CBS’ “60 Minutes”; ABC’s “Celebrity Family Feud” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos”; CBS’ “FBI”; the Wednesday edition of CBS’ “Big Brother”; NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior”; CBS’ “Young Sheldon” and “NCIS”; and ABC’s “Generation Gap.”
