ratings

The actor’s April 13 episode, which also featured musical guest Chris Stapleton, drew 8.9 million viewers after seven days, according to NBCUniversal. In the 18-49 demo, the episode is up to a 2.0 rating. That’s the show’s largest seven-day audience since Billie Eilish hosted in December 2021, and it’s the best demo performance since Dave Chappelle’s last hosting gig in November 2022.

CBS’s NCIS was Monday’s most-watched show 6.3 million/0.3), while NBC’s The Voice tied ABC’s American Idol for the nightly demo win (0.4).

CBS’s Tracker this week was Sunday’s most-watched TV program (7.6 million viewers/0.4), while ABC’s AFV and American Idol tied for the nightly demo win )0.5). The yet-to-be-renewed The Equalizer returned from a multi-week break to 6M/0.4, hitting and matching season lows.

With NBC’s #OneChicago still in rerun mode, CBS’s Survivor was Wednesday’s most-watched and top-rated program with 4.8 million total viewers and a 0.8 rating. ABC’s Not Dead Yet (2.1M/0.2) hit and matched season lows.

CBS’s FBI was Tuesday’s most-watched and highest-rated program (with 7.1 million total viewers and a 0.5 rating). In addition, FBI: International (5.7M/0.4) and FBI: Most Wanted (5M/0.4) all added viewers and were steady in the demo. In fact, International and Most Wanted delivered best-since-season premiere audiences, while FBI came very close to doing the same.

CBS’s NCIS was Monday’s most-watched program and landed in a four-way tie for the nightly demo win with 6.7 million viewers/0.4.

The college basketball season may be over, but Caitlin Clark helped lead ESPN to one more audience record before going pro. The Iowa Hawkeyes superstar was the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft on Monday, and 2.45 million viewers tuned in to ESPN to watch her be selected by the Indiana Fever, according to Nielsen. This is a record-smashing audience for the WNBA draft, marking the first time that the event has ever tallied over a million viewers. The former record holder was the 2004 draft, which this year’s beat by 304%. Pictured: Clark with WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert (Adam Hunger/AP).

YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu posted viewing gains in March versus February contributing to streaming’s continuing virtual dominance — up 12% in persons age 18 plus viewing year-over-year, according to Nielsen. YouTube posted another gain (up 0.4 point from February) to a leading 9.7% best share of a platform TV-video. Netflix was right behind with an 8.1% share, up 0.3 point — helped by three original shows Love is Blind, The Gentleman and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Hulu added 0.2 of a point, now at 3.0% TV share.

Cable captured 28.3% of all TV viewing in March, according to Nielsen’s monthly Gauge report, up from 27.6% in February. That’s the first time since August 2023 — a span of seven months — that cable has seen its share of TV use increase. The State of the Union amassed 14.1 million viewers on cable channels (about 44% of the overall audience of 32.23 million), and the top six telecasts on cable for the March reporting period (which ran from Feb. 26 to March 31) were related to the annual address. Early rounds of the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments also helped push cable’s viewing share up; overall, cable sports viewing rose by 43% from February.

ABC News was the most watched broadcast network during the two-hour period (2-4 p.m. ET) when the broadcast nets provided live coverage. Fox News, which simulcast Fox Weather’s coverage, led all the cable news networks in total viewers during the three-hour period (1-4 p.m. ET) when the cable networks offered coverage.

CBS’s FBI was Tuesday’s most-watched show and it led the night in the coveted 18-49 demo (6.4 million total viewers and a 0.5 rating).

The April 7 finale had a first-night audience of 1.1 million viewers on HBO and Max (including replays), which was the best performance for Curb since the Season 10 finale drew 1.4 million cross-platform viewers in March 2020. The initial airing on HBO drew 530,000 viewers — about 51% higher than the show’s linear average for the previous nine episodes — with streaming on Max and replays contributing the remaining 570,000 viewers.

Audiences seem to have enjoyed 9-1-1 paying homage to The Poseidon Adventure. Bobby and Athena’s three-episode cruise ship disaster came to a dramatic conclusion during the March 28 episode which, after seven days of multi-platform viewing, became the series’ most-watched telecast in more than two years. According to Disney, the episode drew 10.72 million viewers in seven days of viewing across ABC, Hulu and digital platforms. That’s nearly double the audience of 5.5 million that tuned in live + same-day.

The women’s NCAA championship game drew a bigger television audience than the men’s title game for the first time, with an average of 18.9 million viewers watching undefeated South Carolina beat Iowa and superstar Caitlin Clark, according to ratings released Tuesday. The Sunday afternoon game on ABC and ESPN outdrew Monday’s men’s final between UConn and Purdue by four million. The Huskies’ 75-60 victory averaged 14.82 million on TBS and TNT. The audience for the women’s game — in which the Gamecocks won their fourth national title and denied Clark’s Hawkeyes their first — peaked at 24.1 million during the final 15 minutes.

South Carolina defeated Iowa in front of a record-breaking national audience on Sunday. The NCAA Women’s Championship delivered 18.7M viewers across ABC and ESPN, which marks an 89% increase in viewership year-over-year. Not only is that the most-watched women’s college basketball game on record, the matchup is also the second most-watched non-Olympic women’s sporting event ever on U.S. television. It comes in behind only the 2015 Women’s World Cup Final, according to Nielsen data. Pictured: South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley cuts down the net after her team’s 87-75 victory. (Morry Gash/AP)

Thee women’s NCAA Semifinals on ESPN shattered viewership records Friday, as all-time NCAA basketball scoring leader Caitlin Clark led her Iowa Hawkeyes to a thrilling win over the UConn Huskies, 71-69, in a game that wasn’t decided until the final seconds. UConn-Iowa delivered 14.2 million viewers, making it the most-watched women’s college basketball game ever, according to Nielsen’s Fast Nationals. Viewership peaked at 17 million viewers for Iowa-UConn, while South Carolina and North Carolina State peaked at 9 million viewers. Pictured: Iowa guard Caitlin Clark with head coach Lisa Bluder during the second half. (Morry Gash/AP)

NBC’s Chicago Med was the most-watched show on Wednesday (6.4 million/0.5) , while CBS’s Survivor dominated the night in the coveted 18-49 demographic with a 0.8.

The U.S. Joint Industry Committee (JIC) announced Comscore and VideoAmp have received full certification as a transactional currency for the U.S. advertising marketplace. The move comes more than six months after the JIC granted conditional currency to Comscore, VideoAmp, and iSpot, which remains conditionally certified pending a final certification decision, which will be made by the JIC in June, in time for the 2024-25 upfront advertising marketplace.

CBS’s NCIS was Monday’s most-watched show (5.9 million/0.4), while ABC’s American Idol landed in a four-way tie for the nightly demo win (3.9 million/0.4). The CW’s All American opened Season 6 with 367,000 total viewers and a 0.1 demo rating, hitting and matching series lows.

Last year’s NCAA women’s basketball championship set an all-time ratings record for a women’s game on ESPN. A rematch of that game — albeit two rounds earlier in the tournament — on Monday night drew an even bigger crowd. Iowa’s 94-87 victory over LSU averaged 12.3 million viewers for ESPN, the largest TV audience ever for a women’s basketball game in the United States. The previous record was set more than 40 years ago, when CBS’ broadcast of the 1983 title game — featuring USC legend Cheryl Miller — drew 11.83 million people. LSU’s 102-85 win in last year’s championship game was the previous ESPN record, drawing 9.9 million viewers across ABC and ESPN2.

Nielsen said it plans to make its combination of panel data plus big-data measurement systems available to use as its preferred currency effective in September, when upfront deals cut this spring take effect. Nielsen is incorporating big data from Dish Network, DirecTV, Roku, Vizio and Comcast into its new measurement systems. Nielsen is also taking to streamers to incorporate their data into its service. The company says the new measurement system increases homes using television by about 4%.

Fox News topped its rivals in the March and first-quarter 2024 ratings by a wide margin, but MSNBC and CNN showed the biggest growth versus the same period a year ago. The past month saw major events like Super Tuesday and President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. Although the numbers aren’t giving the networks the blockbuster audiences of the 2020 cycle, the networks have for now staved off the large double-digit declines of recent years.

Women’s basketball is heating up on ESPN. The network just scored its most-watched NCAA Women’s Sweet 16 on record with 2.4 million viewers across all games. That’s up 96% year-over-year, per Nielsen. The Iowa Hawkeyes defeated the Colorado Buffaloes in the most-viewed Sweet 16 game, tallying a huge audience of 6.9 million, making it the best Sweet 16 audience ever recorded and the second most-watched women’s college basketball game since 1995.

Overall, the NCAA Tournament is averaging 9.4 million viewers on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV, a 4% increase over last year. Pictured: North Carolina State’s Michael O’Connell (12) reacts after a basket by DJ Burns Jr. (30) against Duke during the second half of an Elite Eight college basketball game in the NCAA Tournament in Dallas, Sunday, March 31. (Tony Gutierrez/AP)

WWE’s weekly shows saw improvements in the Q1 key demo ratings year over year while remaining mostly steady in total viewership. Compared to the same time period last year, Smackdown is up 15% in the adults 18-49 demo to an average of 892,000 viewers per episode and up 3% in total viewers with 2.4 million viewers per episode. It should be noted, though, that those numbers do not include the episode that aired on March 29. Raw is up 6% in the demo with an average of 733,000 viewers, but down 7% in total viewers with 1.7 million viewers per episode. NXT saw the biggest increase percentage-wise of the three shows, up 31% in the demo to 242,000 viewers and 7% in total viewers with 646,000 per episode.

NBC’s Chicago Fire was Wednesday’s most-watched show (6.3 million/0.5), while CBS’s Survivor dominated the night in the 18-49 demo (4.7 million/0.7).

CBS’s NCIS was Monday’s most-watched show, while ABC’s The Bachelor finale dominated the night in the coveted-and-delicious 18-49 demo.

Overall, the tournament is averaging 9.07 million viewers on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV. That is a slight increase over the 9.05 million average at this point last year. Pictured: Alabama forward Nick Pringle (23) celebrates with the mascot after Alabama beat Grand Canyon in a second-round college basketball game in the NCAA Tournament in Spokane, Wash., Sunday, March 24. (Ted S. Warren/AP)

Through the first five days of NCAA “March Madness” averaged 9.0 million Nielsen-measured across CBS, TBS, TNT, and TruTV, according to the NCAA — the best results ever for the tournament over that period.

Comcast Advertising’s AudienceXpress unit said it reached an agreement to work with iSpot and evaluate how iSpot’s syndicated national TV ratings can best be incorporated into the AudienceXpress platform. The companies said they were looking to bring new data sets to TV ad measurement, enhance performance TV marketing solutions and provide attribution reporting.

Nearly every commercial that runs on TV is backed by a guarantee of how big an audience will watch it. Late last year, Fox and Netflix decided to throw out that rule, one of the oldest in media economics.

CBS’s FBI was Tuesday’s most-watched show with 6.9 million viewers and it led the night in the coveted and 18-49 demo with a 0.5 rating.

9-1-1 is firing up the airwaves on its new home at ABC. The Season 7 premiere, which paid homage to the disaster thriller The Poseidon Adventure, has now amassed 8.85 million viewers after three days of viewing across ABC, Hulu and other digital platforms. That’s nearly an 80% increase from the live+same-day audience of 4.93 million.

The Media Rating Council certifies Total Household Rating and Average Audience estimates in both Comscore’s national and local TV time-based grid reports.