The New England Patriots’ competitive but action-starved Super Bowl victory over the Los Angeles Rams was seen by 100.7 million people on television and streaming services, the smallest audience for football’s annual spectacle in a decade. A boycott by disgruntled New Orleans Saints fans, a campaign by fans of quarterback Colin Kaepernick and a game […]
Football Dominates Television Viewing as Holiday Nears
Professional football — the lifeblood of live television this time of year — illustrated its dominance in the ratings this past week. Four NFL games finished among the Nielsen company’s 20 most popular prime-time programs, with NBC’s Sunday night and Fox’s Thursday contests the top two. Both games featured Los Angeles teams. Add in three […]
Trump Proposes ‘Worldwide Network’ to Counter CNN Overseas
President Donald Trump is raising the possibility of starting “our own Worldwide Network” to counter news spread internationally by CNN. Trump said via Twitter on Monday that CNN “has a powerful voice portraying the United States in an unfair and false way. Something has to be done.” It wasn’t immediately clear what he meant. The […]
Fox Begins Digital Service for People Who Want More Opinion
The new streaming service Fox Nation that launches Tuesday is aimed at people who don’t think Fox News Channel offers enough opinion. Fox is becoming the latest television news operation to stake out digital turf. Rather than an attempt to seek out young cord-cutters, Fox Nation is a subscription-based service designed to complement Fox News […]
CBS’ Moonves, the Latest Powerful Exec Felled in #MeToo Era
The #MeToo movement fighting sexual misconduct had already claimed one of Hollywood’s top movie moguls in Harvey Weinstein. Now it has done the same for Leslie Moonves, one of the television industry’s most powerful executives. The CBS Corp. announced its chairman’s exit late Sunday, hours after The New Yorker magazine posted a story with a […]
MTV Arrests Steep Decline in its Video Awards Show
It may have been a lousy night for Madonna at the MTV Video Music Awards, but the event offered some glimmers of hope for the network. The Nielsen company estimated that 5.23 million watched Monday’s annual tribute to what’s current in popular music across several Viacom-owned networks. While that’s down from the 5.68 million who […]
World Cup Finale Reaches 16 Million Viewers in U.S.
The World Cup soccer final where France defeated Croatia was seen by just over 16 million people in the United States on Sunday. While that made the Sunday morning telecast on Fox and Telemundo the most-watched program of the week, it represented a significant drop in viewership from the 2014 World Cup finale, which featured […]
Brett Kavanaugh Announcement Lags Behind Neil Gorsuch Pick
Brett Kavanaugh is no Neil Gorsuch — at least as a television draw for their first night on the national political stage. The Nielsen company said that 25.6 million people watched President Donald Trump’s prime-time announcement Monday that Kavanaugh is his nominee for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. That compares to 32.4 million […]
Opinionated News Dominates Cable Television Last Week
Cable television networks offer sports, reality, comedy and drama. But what’s selling now is opinionated news. Sixteen of the 17 most-watched programs on cable last week were either on Fox News Channel or MSNBC, the Nielsen company said. The only exception was coverage of the NBA draft on ESPN. Three editions of Sean Hannity’s show […]
CBS to Finish Season Atop Ratings, for 10th Straight Year
CBS is finishing another television season atop the television ratings, but the network had to sweat a little this time. The traditional TV season that started in September ends on Wednesday, and CBS will win bragging rights for the 10th year in a row, the Nielsen company said. CBS has won for 15 of the […]