The network had its largest margin of victory in the weekly ratings competition, beating second-place NBC in prime time by an average of more than 5 million viewers. It was the widest CBS win since a week last January dominated by an NFL conference championship.
BROADCAST NETWORK RATINGS ROUNDUP: DEC. 12-18
CBS Wins Week With Year’s Biggest Margin
NEW YORK (AP) — CBS has been the dominant television network again this season, but not so much as last week.
The network had its largest margin of victory in the weekly ratings competition, beating second-place NBC in primetime by an average of more than 5 million viewers. It was the widest CBS win since a week last January dominated by an NFL conference championship.
Fourteen of the 16 most-watched shows in primetime last week were on CBS, the Nielsen company said. The two exceptions were NBC’s Sunday night football matchup and its pregame show.
It helped that reruns and specials studded the schedules of rivals last week, particularly on ABC, which fell to fourth place.
The venerable “60 Minutes” finished second behind “NCIS” for the week, its best showing since 2009. An assist goes to the NFL, where a popular game between New England and Denver aired just before the newsmagazine.
NBC’s “Fear Factor” made a strong return after years off the air. The two editions shown last week were more popular than anything else on the network aside from Sunday night football.
BRAND CONNECTIONS
CBS averaged 11.4 million viewers for the week (6.9 rating, 11 share). NBC had a 6.2 million prime time average (3.9, 6), Fox had 5.6 million (3.3, 5), ABC had 5 million (3.2, 5), Ion Television had 1.2 million (0.8, 1) and the CW had 1.1 million (0.7, 1).
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 3.3 million average (1.7, 3), Telemundo had 1.3 million (0.7, 1), TeleFutura had 520,000 (0.3, 0), Estrella had 220,000 and Azteca 200,000 (both 0.1, 0).
NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.8 million viewers (5.8, 11). ABC’s “World News” was second with 7.8 million (5.2, 10) and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.3 million viewers (4.2, 8).
A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.7 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 for Dec. 12-18. Listings include the week’s ranking and viewership.
1. “NCIS,” CBS, 19.13 million.
2. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 18.47 million.
3. NFL Football: Baltimore at San Diego, NBC, 16.58 million.
4. “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 16.4 million.
5. “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 14.88 million.
6. “The Mentalist,” CBS, 13.16 million.
7. “Survivor: South Pacific Finale,” CBS, 13.07 million.
8. “Person of Interest,” CBS, 12.93 million.
9. “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 12.88 million.
10. “Mike & Molly,” CBS, 12.77 million.
11. “2 Broke Girls” (Monday, 8 p.m.), CBS, 12.5 million.
12. “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 12.23 million.
13. “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 11.87 million.
14. “Unforgettable,” CBS, 11.3 million.
15. “Hawaii Five-0,” CBS, 11.17 million.
16. “Survivor: South Pacific,” CBS, 10.87 million.
17. “The X-Factor” (Wednesday), Fox, 10.79 million.
18. “2 Broke Girls,” CBS, 10.18 million.
19. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 10.17 million.
20. “Survivor: South Pacific Reunion,” CBS, 9.92 million
Comments (0)