TV Ratings
TV Ratings: Biden-Trump Debate Draws 51M Viewers, Way Below 2020
The first debate face-off (of the 2024 election cycle, at least) between President Joe Biden and Republican challenger Donald Trump drew a big audience — but not nearly as big as their 2020 debates. The 99-minute debate, produced by CNN but aired on 16 other networks, averaged 51.27 million viewers, according to final same-day ratings from […]
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TV Ratings: Stanley Cup Hits Five-Year High With Game 7 Thriller
The last game of the NHL’s Stanley Cup Finals delivered both on the ice and in the ratings. The Florida Panthers’ 2-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Monday night’s seventh game averaged 7.66 million viewers on ABC in the United States — the largest audience for an NHL game since 2019 (which was also […]
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Disney Holds Steady as Top TV Programming Distributor in May
Disney kept a lock on the top spot as the media company responsible for the biggest share of TV viewing in May. That’s according to Nielsen’s second Media Distributor Gauge, which looks at how TV use stacks up by company. Disney’s 11.4 percent of all TV use in May includes viewing on ABC, ESPN, FX, […]
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Streaming Ratings: ‘Bridgerton’ Repeats at No. 1
Season three of Bridgerton ruled the streaming charts for a second straight week, holding onto most of its premiere week audience and racking up more than 2 billion minutes of viewing. A pair of sci-fi films, Jennifer Lopez’s Atlas and Dune: Part Two, also had pretty strong showings in the week of May 20-26, and […]
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Pat Sajak’s ‘Wheel of Fortune’ Goodbye Hits Four-Year Ratings High
The final episode for long-time Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak drew a big audience — the biggest for the game show in more than four years. Sajak’s June 7 farewell on Wheel of Fortune, which he hosted for more than 40 years, drew 11.03 million viewers, the biggest tune-in for the syndicated series since April […]
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TV Ratings: ‘House of the Dragon’ Opens Lower With Season 2 Premiere
Westeros remains a favored destination for HBO viewers. The second season premiere of House of the Dragon brought in 7.8 million viewers across all platforms in the U.S. Sunday night — a strong showing, without a doubt, but about 22 percent below the show’s record-setting series premiere in August 2022. The series premiere drew nearly 10 […]
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‘Young Sheldon’ Flexes Cross-Platform Might in May
The end of Young Sheldon’s seven-season run in May fueled a multi-platform surge for the show. The CBS comedy scored some of the biggest on-air ratings for a scripted series in the 2023-24 season with its series finale: It drew 9.32 million viewers the night it aired and grew to 11.74 million over seven days. […]
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TV Ratings: Tony Awards Fall With Father’s Day Slot
The audience for the Tony Awards took a hit Sunday — which was also one of the most lightly viewed Sunday on all of traditional TV in recent history. The Tonys averaged 3.53 million viewers, according to final same-day ratings from Nielsen The Broadway honors declined by about 14 percent year to year; last year’s […]
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Streaming Ratings: ‘Bridgerton’ Season 3 Debuts Atop Charts
The webs of romance in Bridgerton easily captured the top spot among all streaming titles for the show’s return. Theatrical flop Madame Web, meanwhile, found a promising start to its streaming life. Bridgerton drew 2.76 billion minutes of viewing time in the United States for the week of May 13-19. The first half of season […]
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TV Ratings 2023-24: Final Numbers for (Almost) Every Network Series
The 2023-24 TV season was blown apart before it ever began. Two labor strikes and media companies’ refusal to budge on the demands of writers and actors wiped out a couple dozen fall premieres for scripted series on the broadcast networks. When management did agree to new terms with writers and actors (largely accepting the […]
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What Cable TV Would Look Like Without Sports
ESPN ran a promotional campaign in the mid-2000s called “Without Sports” that posited the world would be less interesting and less connected in the absence of athletic competition (and, of course, ESPN’s exhaustive coverage of it). The 2024 version of that campaign might go something like, “Without sports, would anyone be watching cable?” The answer […]
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‘The Acolyte’ Gives Disney+ Its Best Series Opening of 2024
A substantial number of Disney+ users followed The Acolyte over its first few days on the streamer. Disney+ says the Star Wars series recorded the biggest opening for a show on the streamer so far this year, with the premiere episode recording 11.1 million views — i.e., the equivalent of that many complete showings of the […]
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