weekly primetime ratings roundup

Viewers Tune Out Networks' Nightly News

The big news in TV ratings last week was how few people bothered to watch the three network evening newscasts.
Associated Press,

NEW YORK (AP) -- The big news in TV ratings last week was how few people bothered to watch the news -- the three network evening newscasts, anyway.

Logging only 4.9 million viewers, the "CBS Evening News" slipped below 5 million for the first time on record. And ABC's "World News" had 6.4 million viewers -- a drop of a half-million viewers from the week before, according to Nielsen Media Research.

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Not helping matters: ABC's Charles Gibson and CBS' Katie Couric had the week off from their respective anchor desks.

Brian Williams was on duty at "NBC Nightly News," which won the week with a three-day average of 7.8 million viewers, down a half-million from the week before. (NBC's U.S. Open coverage led to preemptions Thursday and Friday.)

In primetime, a slew of popular repeats of such episodic series as "NCIS,""Two and a Half Men" and "The Mentalist" helped CBS win the week. That network had nine of the top 10 most-watched programs, and 16 of the top 20.

CBS averaged 7.0 million viewers (4.7 rating, 9 share). Runner-up Fox had 4.7 million (3.0 rating, 6 share), while NBC had 4.6 million (3.1 rating, 6 share) and ABC 3.7 million viewers (2.4 rating, 4 share). My Network TV had 1.3 million viewers (0.8 rating, 2 share), the CW 950,000 viewers (0.7 rating, 1 share), and Ion Television 810,000 (0.5 rating, 1 share).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 3.3 million average audience (1.7 rating, 3 share). Telemundo had 1.1 million viewers (0.5 rating, 1 share), TeleFutura 720,000 viewers (0.4 rating, 1 share), and Azteca 170,000 viewers (0.1 rating, 0 share).

A ratings point represents 1,145,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.5 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

The Top 20
Primetime viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen Media Research for June 15-21. Listings include the week's ranking, with viewership for the week and season-to-date rankings in parentheses. An "X" in parentheses denotes a one-time-only presentation.

1. (5) "NCIS," CBS, 10.39 million viewers.

2. (10) "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 10.19 million viewers.

3. (26) "The Mentalist," CBS, 10.12 million viewers.

4. (5) "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 9.72 million viewers.

5. (8) "The Mentalist," CBS, 8.97 million viewers.

6. (43) "So You Think You Can Dance" (Wednesday), Fox, 8.48 million viewers.

7. (36) "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 8.42 million viewers.

8. (11) "60 Minutes," CBS, 8.31 million viewers.

9. (14) "CSI: Miami," CBS, 8.25 million viewers.

10. (11) "Criminal Minds," CBS, 8.04 million viewers.

11. (50) "Wipeout," ABC, 8.00 million viewers.

12. (43) "So You Think You Can Dance" (Thursday), Fox, 7.98 million viewers.

13. (16) "CSI: NY," CBS, 7.80 million viewers.

14. (X) "NCIS Thursday," CBS, 7.60 million viewers.

15. (59) "48 Hours Mystery Tuesday," CBS, 7.20 million viewers.

16. (66) "The Bachelorette," ABC, 6.76 million viewers.

17. (23) "Cold Case," CBS, 6.75 million viewers.

18. (X) "Without a Trace" (Sunday), CBS, 6.70 million viewers.

19. (59) "Million Dollar Password," CBS, 6.25 million viewers.

20. (X) "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 6.05 million viewers.

 

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Ratings

Overnights, adults 18-49 for 2月 3, 2012
  • 1.
    3.9/11
  • 2.
    3.5/9
  • 3.
    2.5/7
  • 4.
    1.5/4
  • 5.
    1.5/4
  • 6.
    0.9/2
Source: Nielsen
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