By David Bauder, Media Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --In what was otherwise a rough two weeks in Tokyo for NBC, television viewers responded — at least slightly — to the U.S. Olympic team's strong performance in the second half of the Games.
NBC's primetime broadcast viewership for the second week was down 46% compared to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics of 2016, the Nielsen company said. In the first week, NBC was down 52% compared to Rio.
Last Tuesday, the 14.3 million people who watched the Games on NBC was actually up from the 14 million that had watched a week earlier from Tokyo. Generally, viewership goes down in the second week of the Olympics as viewers begin to tire of the nightly competition.
NBC said the Tokyo games averaged 15.6 million in primetime viewership when the main network, cable outlets and streaming are added in. That's down 42% from the Olympics in Brazil.
The Tokyo streaming consumption of 5.5 billion minutes was up 22% over Rio, NBC said.
For the week, NBC averaged 10.6 million viewers in primetime. CBS had 2.3 million, Fox had 2.1 million, ABC had 1.9 million, Univision had 1.3 million, Ion Television had 1.1 million and Telemundo had 960,000.
Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network in primetime, averaging 2.06 million viewers. The USA network had 1.16 million, MSNBC had 1.01 million, HGTV had 980,000 and TLC had 910,000.ABC's "World News Tonight" won the evening news ratings race with and average of 7.4 million viewers. NBC's "Nightly News" had 6.9 million and the "CBS Evening News" had 4.7 million.
For the week of Aug. 2-8, the 20 most-watched programs in primetime, their networks and viewerships:
1. "Summer Olympics" (Tuesday), NBC, 14.31 million.
2. "Summer Olympics" (Monday), NBC, 13.71 million.
3. "Summer Olympics" (Wednesday), NBC, 11.01 million.
4. "Summer Olympics" (Thursday), NBC, 10.99 million.
5. "Summer Olympics" (Friday), NBC, 9.85 million.
6. "Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony," NBC, 8.82 million.
7. "Summer Olympics" (Saturday), NBC, 8.45 million.
8. NFL Exhibition Football: Dallas vs. Pittsburgh, Fox, 7.31 million.
9. "60 Minutes," CBS, 6.10 million.
10. "Tokyo Gold," NBC, 5.84 million.
11. "Big Brother" (Sunday), CBS, 3.97 million.
12. "Big Brother" (Thursday), CBS, 3.73 million.
13. "The Bachelorette," ABC, 3.66 million.
14. "Big Brother" (Wednesday), CBS, 3.64 million.
15. "Family Game Fight," NBC, 3.39 million.
16. "NCIS," CBS, 3.16 million.
17. "Tucker Carlson Tonight" (Wednesday), Fox News, 3.07 million.
18. "Tucker Carlson Tonight" (Monday), Fox News, 2.927 million.
19. "Tucker Carlson Tonight" (Tuesday), Fox News, 2.923 million.
20. "Tucker Carlson Tonight" (Thursday), Fox News, 2.8 million.
Civil rights groups call on major corporations to stick with DEI programs
A broad group of civil rights organizations called on the CEOs and board members of major companies Thursday to maintain their commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that have come under attack online and in lawsuits.
An open letter signed by 19 organizations and directed at the leaders of Fortune 1000 companies said companies that abandon their DEI programs are shirking their fiduciary responsibility to employees, consumers and shareholders.
The civil rights groups included the NAACP, the National Organization for Women, the League of United Latin American Citizens, Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
"Diversity, equity and inclusion programs, policies, and practices make business-sense and they're broadly popular among the public, consumers, and employees," their statement read. "But a small, well-funded, and extreme group of right-wing activists is attempting to pressure companies into abandoning their DEI programs."
Companies such as Ford, Lowes, John Deere, Molson Coors and Harley-Davidson recently announced they would pull back on their diversity, equity and inclusion policies after facing pressure from conservative activists who were emboldened by recent victories in the courtroom.
Many major corporations have been examining their diversity programs in the wake of a Supreme Court decision last year that declared race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions unconstitutional. Dozens of cases have been filed making similar arguments about employers. Critics of DEI programs say the initiatives provide benefits to people of one race or sexual orientation while excluding others.
In their letter, the civil rights organizations, which also included... Read More