NFL tops TV ratings again; Emmy Awards see gains from last year

NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” was the week’s most-watched program, averaging 19.808 million viewers for the Baltimore Ravens’ 36-35 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.

Viewership was up 12.3% from the 17.639-million average for the previous week’s game, the Rams’ 34-14 victory over the Chicago Bears, according to live-plus-same-day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen.

CBS’ broadcast of Sunday’s three-hour, 15-minute Emmy Awards ceremony ended a six-year streak of record-low viewership, benefiting from following NFL programming. Originating from the Event Deck of L.A. Live, the ceremony averaged 7.826 million viewers, 23.1% more than last year’s average of 6.36 million.

The Emmy Awards were eighth among prime-time broadcast and cable programs airing between Sept. 13 and Sunday, trailing two NFL games, three pregame shows and two postgame shows.

With four hours of NFL programming and four hours of the season’s final two “America’s Got Talent” episodes, NBC won the network race, averaging 5.31 million viewers.

ABC finished second averaging 4.9 million viewers and CBS was third, averaging 4.41 million. Fox was fourth among the major broadcast networks, averaging 1.75 million viewers. The CW again was fifth among the five major English-language broadcast networks, averaging 420,000 viewers.

The Tuesday “America’s Got Talent” episode was 10th for the week, averaging 7.425 million viewers, and the Wednesday episode 12th, averaging 6.391 million.

ABC’s ratings leader was its simulcast with ESPN of “Monday Night Football,” which had a combined audience of 14.46 million viewers, fourth for the week, with an average of 6.89 million watching on ABC and 7.57 million viewers on cable..

Outside of its NFL programming, ABC’s highest ratings were for Penn State’s 28-20 victory over Auburn on “Saturday Night Football,” ninth for the week, averaging 7.606 million viewers, and a rerun of “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” 13th for the week, averaging 4.463 million viewers.

Fox’s biggest audiences were its seven-minute NFL postgame show, which averaged 11.37 million, fifth for the week, and “MasterChef,” 48th for the week, averaging 2.533 million.

The Canadian crime drama “Coroner” topped The CW’s ratings, averaging 680,000 viewers to finish 157th among broadcast programs. Its overall rank was not available.

Fox News Channel finished first in prime time among cable networks for the 11th consecutive week, averaging 2.625 million viewers. ESPN was second, averaging 1.942 million viewers, and MSNBC third, averaging 1.33 million.

CNN was seventh for the third consecutive week, averaging 793,000 viewers, also trailing fourth-place HGTV (1.063 million), fifth-place Hallmark Channel (894,000) and sixth-place TLC (888,000).

“Outer Banks” edged “CoComelon” to top the list of most-streamed programs for the third consecutive week, with viewers watching 736 million minutes of the 20 episodes of the teen mystery from Aug. 16-22 on Netflix.