A ventriloquist and exhibition football helped NBC snap Fox’s 28-week winning streak among youthful viewers.
Nearly 14 million people watched ventriloquist Terry Fator win America’s Got Talent, making it the week’s most-watched show. It was the strongest performance of the summer for the American Idol look-alike.
The last time Fox had lost a week among viewers aged 18-to-49 was when the Super Bowl was shown. NBC, ABC and Fox sell the bulk of their advertising on ratings in that age group.
Counting older folks in, CBS was once again the most popular network last week, Nielsen Media Research said.
Fox’s average of 4.7 million viewers last week was its lowest in two years, Nielsen said. The network series “Anchorwoman,” with 2.7 million viewers for its premiere, was quickly canceled.
NBC tried a network version of MSNBC’s “Countdown” show with Keith Olbermann on Sunday night. The audience of 3 million — lower than “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader” on Fox — still more than tripled his typical cable audience.
CBS averaged 6.9 million viewers for the week (4.7 rating, 8 share). NBC had 6 million (3.8, 7), Fox 4.7 million and ABC 4.5 million (both 3.0, 5). The CW averaged 2 million viewers (1.3, 2), My Network TV had 1 million (0.7, 1) and ION Television 570,000 (0.4, 1).
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision averaged 3 million viewers (1.6, 3), Telemundo had 930,000 (0.5, 1), Telefutura had 660,000 (0.4, 1) and Azteca had 150,000 (0.1, 0).
ABC’s “World News” won the evening news ratings race, averaging 8.1 million viewers to NBC “Nightly News’” 7.9 million (both 5.5, 12). The “CBS Evening News” had 6.1 million (4.3, 9).
A ratings point represents 1,130,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 112.8 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of Aug. 20-26, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “America’s Got Talent,” NBC, 13.94 million; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 10.37 million; “Without a Trace,” CBS, 9.3 million; “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 9.25 million; NFL Exhibition: Philadelphia vs. Pittsburgh, NBC, 9.2 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 9.05 million; “Singing Bee,” NBC, 8.88 million; “Power of Ten,” CBS, 8.7 million; “Cold Case,” CBS, 8.45 million; “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 8.3 million.
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