With its Tuesday lineup accounting for three of last week’s four prime-time programs to average more than 10 million viewers, CBS was the most-watched network for the seventh consecutive week, according to live-plus-same day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen.
CBS averaged 6.68 million viewers for its prime-time programming between April 17 and Sunday for its 18th victory in the 31-week-old season.
A week after dropping to third behind CBS and ABC, NBC averaged 5.12 million viewers to finish second for the sixth time in seven weeks.
NBC’s most-watched program was the Monday edition of “The Voice,” which averaged 9.57 million viewers to finish sixth.
ABC averaged 4.08 million viewers to finish third for the seventh time in the eight weeks after it aired the Oscars. ABC aired reruns in its Wednesday two-hour comedy block and its second most-watched drama for the season, “Grey’s Anatomy” was pre-empted.
Fox averaged 2.23 million viewers to finish fourth among the broadcast networks for the 11th consecutive week since it aired Super Bowl LI.
Fox’s most-watched program was children’s cooking competition “MasterChef Junior,” 55th for the week, averaging 3.583 million viewers.
CBS’ “NCIS” was the week’s most-watched program, averaging 13.326 million viewers. “Bull,” which followed, averaged 10.318 million viewers, third for the week.
“NCIS: New Orleans,” which concluded CBS’ Tuesday schedule, was fourth, averaging 10.159 million viewers.
ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” was the week’s only other program to average more than 10 million viewers, averaging 11.186 million to finish second for the week.
CBS had each of the week’s eight most-watched dramas. Reruns of `The Big Bang Theory, “Blue Bloods” and “Hawaii Five-0” drew more viewers than any scripted program on a competing network.
NBA playoff coverage made TNT the most-watched cable network, averaging 3.077 million viewers. Fox News Channel averaged 2.241 million viewers to finish second after finishing first for three consecutive weeks and 12 of the past 13.
Each of the seven most-watched prime-time cable programs were NBA playoff games on TNT, topped by Sunday’s Boston Celtics-Chicago Bulls game which averaged 4.283 million viewers, 37th overall.
Each of the week’s five most-watched Spanish-language prime-time programs were episodes of the Univision telenovela “Vino El Amor,” topped by the Thursday episode which averaged 2.218 million viewers, 110th overall.
Longtime leader Univision averaged 1.65 million viewers to be the most- watched Spanish-language network for the 24th consecutive week and 26th time in 27 weeks.
Telemundo was second, averaging 1.3 million viewers, followed by UniMas, which averaged 710,000 viewers, Estrella TV, which averaged 250,000, and Azteca America, which averaged 100,000.
The “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” edged ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir,” 7.846 million-7.781 million to be the the most- watched nightly network newscast.
“World News Tonight with David Muir” had finished first six of the previous seven weeks.
The “CBS Evening News” was third, as it has been throughout Scott Pelley’s more than five years as anchor, averaging 6.3 million viewers.
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs were CBS’ “NCIS”; ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars”; CBS’ “Bull,” “NCIS: New Orleans” and “60 Minutes”; the Monday episode of NBC’s “The Voice”; CBS’ “NCIS: Los Angeles”; the Tuesday episode of “The Voice”; CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory”; and NBC’s “Little Big Shots.”
