NBC shows lose viewers but stay at top

Despite dwindling viewership, NBC’s Tuesday night duo of “America’s Got Talent” and “The Singing Bee” continued to be prime time’s most-watched shows last week.

“America’s Got Talent” ranked No. 1 between July 23 and Sunday with 9.83 million viewers, down 5% from the 10.38 million who tuned in a week earlier, according to Nielsen Media Research figures released Tuesday.

“The Singing Bee,” which airs after “America’s Got Talent,” was second with 9.49 million viewers, continuing its sharp decline from its premiere two weeks earlier. The premiere drew 13.31 million viewers, and the second episode 11.03 million.

“America’s Got Talent” has been television’s most-watched program for five of the last eight weeks, while “The Singing Bee” led the previous two weeks.

Both programs were developed under ousted NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly, who now holds a similar position with Fox Broadcasting’s entertainment division.

CBS was the most-watched network in prime time for the eighth time in the nine weeks of television’s summer season, averaging 6.34 million viewers. Fox was second with 5.81 million.

The TNT police drama “The Closer” was the week’s most-watched program on cable television for the sixth consecutive week, with 7.29 million viewers, which would have put it 18th among the programs on the five major broadcast networks.

Disney Channel was the week’s most-watched cable channel in prime time for the third consecutive week, averaging 2.85 million viewers.

With anchor Charles Gibson returning from a week’s vacation, his nightly newscast on ABC was back in its customary top spot, averaging 7.53 million viewers to notch its 13th victory in the last 14 weeks.

The “NBC Nightly News” was second with 7.17 million viewers, 10% fewer than the corresponding week a year ago. The “CBS Evening News With Katie Couric” was third for the 44th consecutive week, averaging 5.93 million viewers, 14% fewer than the corresponding week last year when Bob Schieffer was the interim anchor.

With its high amount of first-run summer programming compared with its English-language competitors, Univision’s Spanish-language programming on KMEX-TV Channel 34 dominated the viewing choices in the Los Angeles market, with each of the top 10 programs -- including all five installments of its telenovela “Destilando Amor.”

The week’s most-watched English-language program in the L.A. market was Fox’s “Hell’s Kitchen,” 11th for the week with 572,000 viewers.

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Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week (July 23-29) as compiled by Nielsen Media Research. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish. Nielsen estimates there are 283.5 million potential viewers in the U.S. ages 2 and older. Viewership is listed in millions.

*--* Program Net- work View- ers Program Net- work View- ers *--*

*--* 1 America’s Got Talent (Tue.) NBC 9.83 2 Singing Bee (Tue.) NBC 9.49 3 CSI CBS 9.34 4 So You Think You Can Dance FOX 9.14 (Thu.) 5 Hell’s Kitchen FOX 8.89

6 Don’t Forget the Lyrics (Thu.) FOX 8.83 7 Two and a Half Men CBS 8.79 8 60 Minutes CBS 8.69 9 Are You Smarter Than a 5th FOX 8.57 Grader? 10 Shark (Thu.) CBS 8.19

11 CSI: NY CBS 8.04 12 CSI: Miami CBS 7.98 13 NCIS CBS 7.92 14 Just for Laughs ABC 7.87 15 So You Think You Can Dance FOX 7.85 (Wed.)

16 Criminal Minds CBS 7.58 17 Don’t Forget the Lyrics (Wed.) FOX 7.43 18 The Next Best Thing ABC 7.09 19 Big Brother 8 (Thu.) CBS 7.08 20 Just for Laughs ABC 7.00

21 Law & Order: SVU (Tue.) NBC 6.88 22 Big Brother 8 (Tue.) CBS 6.85 23 Dateline: NBC (Wed.) NBC 6.82 24 Law & Order: SVU (Sun.) NBC 6.76 25 Law & Order NBC 6.71

26 House FOX 6.49 27 How I Met Your Mother (9:30 CBS 6.48 p.m.) 28 “CMA Music Festival” ABC 6.46 29 Dateline: NBC (Mon.) NBC 6.43 30 Family Guy (9:30 p.m.) FOX 6.38

48 Hours Mystery (Sat.) CBS 6.38 32 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition ABC 6.37 33 Last Comic Standing 5 NBC 6.23 34 Big Brother 8 (Sun.) CBS 6.17 35 American Inventor ABC 6.13

36 Cold Case CBS 5.95 37 20/20 ABC 5.86 38 48 Hours Mystery (Tue.) CBS 5.79 39 Dateline: NBC (Sun.) NBC 5.64 40 Family Guy FOX 5.56

41 America’s Funniest Home Videos ABC 5.52 (Sun.) 42 Old Christine CBS 5.32 Age of Love (9 p.m.) NBC 5.32 44 Most Outrageous Moments NBC 5.30 45 Primetime: Family Secrets ABC 5.11

46 Ghost Whisperer CBS 5.10 47 Shark (Sun.) CBS 5.06 48 How I Met Your Mother (8 p.m.) CBS 4.99 49 Destilando Amor (Thu.) UNI 4.93 50 Law & Order: Criminal NBC 4.92 Intent

51 Numb3rs CBS 4.90 52 The Simpsons FOX 4.81 King of Queens (Wed. CBS 4.81 8:30 p.m.) 54 Shaq’s Big Challenge ABC 4.79 *--*

*--* Network averages Here is the number of viewers (in millions) that each network averaged per hour of prime time, for last week and for the season. Network

Last

week

Season

to date CBS 6.34 11.04

FOX 5.81 9.28

NBC 5.37 7.98

ABC 4.95 8.66

UNI 2.96 3.57

CW 1.88 2.86

TEL 0.98 0.90 *--*