By David Bauder, Media Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --The opening of college football’s season was welcome news for ABC in an otherwise quiet week for television.
The network won the weekly ratings competition on the strength of games that took over the network’s schedule on Saturday night (Oregon vs. Auburn) and Sunday (Oklahoma vs. Houston), the Nielsen company said.
As it approaches its end for the season, NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” otherwise dominated the primetime landscape, with the week’s two most popular programs.
ABC averaged 3.7 million viewers in primetime for the week. NBC was second with 3.43 million viewers, CBS had 3.35 million, Fox had 1.5 million, ION Television had 1.3 million, Univision had 1.03 million, Telemundo had 1.01 million and the CW had 580,000.
Fox News Channel was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.29 million viewers in prime time. MSNBC had 1.53 million, ESPN had 1.39 million, HGTV had 1.21 million and USA had 1.12 million.
ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.2 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 7.3 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.1 million.
Below are primetime viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Aug. 26-Sept. 1. Listings include the week’s ranking and viewership.
1. “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday), NBC, 8.99 million.
2. “America’s Got Talent” (Wednesday), NBC, 8 million.
3. College Football: Oregon vs. Auburn, ABC, 6.86 million.
4. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 6.24 million.
5. College Football: Oklahoma vs. Houston, ABC, 5.44 million.
6. “NCIS,” CBS, 5.11 million.
7. “American Ninja Warrior,” NBC, 4.87 million
8. “Bachelor in Paradise” (Monday), ABC, 4.59 million.
9. “FBI,” CBS, 4.47 million.
10. “Big Brother” (Wednesday), CBS, 4.29 million.
11. “NCIS: New Orleans,” CBS, 4.15 million.
12. “Big Brother” (Sunday), CBS, 4.01 million.
13. “Bachelor in Paradise” (Tuesday), ABC, 3.97 million.
14. “Blue Bloods,” CBS, 3.89 million.
15. “The Big Bang Theory” (Monday, 9 p.m.), CBS, 3.64 million.
16. “Big Brother” (Thursday), CBS, 3.49 million.
17. “Bring the Funny,” NBC, 3.47 million.
18. “Hawaii Five-0,” CBS, 3.43 million.
19. “The Neighborhood,” CBS, 3.41 million.
20. “The Big Bang Theory” (Monday, 8:30 p.m.), CBS, 3.4 million.
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.; CBS is a division of CBS Corp.; Fox is owned by Fox Corp.; NBC is owned by NBC Universal.
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