By David Bauder, Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --The 12-year-old singing sensation Grace VanderWaal’s $1 million prize capped a successful season for summer’s favorite television show, “America’s Got Talent,” and helped NBC to victory last week in the television ratings.
VanderWaal’s feel-good story and the return of Simon Cowell to a judge’s table led to a strong season for the summer favorite, which will now be shelved with the onset of television’s fall season. Last Wednesday’s season finale reached 14.4 million viewers, the Nielsen company said.
It was not such good news for the Emmy Awards, which brought 11.4 million viewers to ABC on Sunday. It was the smallest audience ever recorded for the TV awards show.
The Emmys were hurt by a NBC’s football game, which had 22.8 million viewers, and a CBS special on JonBenet Ramsey, with 10.4 million. Broadcasters once cleared the decks and left little competition for the Emmys. There’s little incentive to do that now, with cable networks and streaming services dominating the awards.
Nielsen’s top 20 last week was clogged with 9 football games or football-related shows.
NBC averaged 8.7 million viewers for the week in prime-time. CBS had 7.6 million, ABC had 5.1 million, Fox had 2.8 million, Telemundo had 1.8 million, Univision had 1.5 million, ION Television had 1.3 million and the CW had 1 million.
ESPN was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 3.24 million viewers in prime-time. Fox had 2.39 million, TBS had 1.49 million, HGTV had 1.48 million and USA had 1.4 million.
NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.8 million viewers. ABC’s “World News Tonight” was second with 7.7 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.3 million viewers.
Below are primetime viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Sept. 12-18. Listings include the week’s ranking and viewership.
1. NFL Football: Green Bay at Minnesota, NBC, 22.75 million.
2. “NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 16.74 million.
3. NFL Football: N.Y. Jets at Buffalo, CBS, 15.39 million.
4. “America’s Got Talent” (Wednesday), NBC, 14.41 million.
5. “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday), NBC, 13.97 million.
6. NFL Football: Pittsburgh at Washington, ESPN, 12.96 million.
7. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 12.7 million.
8. “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 12.19 million.
9. “Football Night in America” (Sunday, 7:55 p.m.), NBC, 11.86 million.
10. “Emmy Awards,” ABC, 11.38 million.
11. “JonBenet Ramsey: Part 1,” CBS, 10.42 million.
12. NFL Football: Los Angeles vs. San Francisco, ESPN, 10.25 million.
13. “NFL Pre-Kick,” CBS, 9.26 million.
14. “Better Late Than Never,” NBC, 7.64 million.
15. “Blindspot,” NBC, 7.1 million.
16. “Thursday Night Kickoff,” CBS, 6.89 million.
17. “NCIS,” CBS, 6.37 million.
18. “Big Brother” (Tuesday), CBS, 6.35 million.
19. “Football Night in America” (Sunday, 7:30 p.m.), NBC, 6.3 million.
20. “Big Brother” (Wednesday), CBS, 6.12 million.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More