By Lynn Elber, Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --TV viewers are idling away the final weeks of summer the way they started it: with reality programs.
Half of last week’s 20 most-watched programs were unscripted contests, according to Nielsen Co. figures released Wednesday.
The field was topped by NBC’s two episodes of “America’s Got Talent” and the Notre Dame-Michigan football game, helping make the network the most-watched for the ninth consecutive week.
Notre Dame’s prime-time 24-17 victory drew the team’s biggest audience on NBC in 13 years, since a game against University of Southern California in 2005.
Amid a somber week of tributes to the late Sen. John McCain, a rerun of “Saturday Night Live” provided a reminder of the politician’s trademark humor. The episode featuring him as host gave the show its biggest audience in six weeks, NBC said.
NBC won the week in prime-time with an average of 5.1 million viewers. CBS had 3.5 million viewers, ABC had 3.7 million, Fox had 1.7 million, ION Television had 1.4 million, Univision had 1.18 million, Telemundo had 1.17 million and the CW had 780,000.
Fox News Channel led the cable networks with an average of 2.2 million viewers. MSNBC had 1.8 million, USA had 1.36 million, HGTV had 1.3 million, ESPN had 1.2 million, History had 1.06 million and CNN had 1.05 million.
ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.2 million viewers. The “NBC Nightly News” had 8.1 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.8 million.
Below are primetime viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Aug. 20-26. Listings include the week’s ranking and viewership.
1. “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday), NBC, 10.78 million.
2. “America’s Got Talent” (Wednesday), NBC, 9.9 million.
3. Notre Dame Football: Michigan at Notre Dame, NBC, 7.1 million.
4. “Sunday Night Kickoff,” ABC, 6.55 million.
5. “American Ninja Warrior,” NBC, 5.86 million.
6. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 5.84 million.
7. “Big Brother” (Wednesday), CBS, 5.78 million.
8. “NCIS,” CBS, 5.74 million.
9. “World of Dance,” NBC, 5.06 million.
10. “Dateline Classic,” NBC, 4.93 million.
11. “Big Brother” (Thursday), CBS, 4.67 million.
12. “Big Brother” (Sunday), CBS, 4.66 million
13. “Bull,” CBS, 4.63 million.
14. “Bachelor in Paradise” (Monday), ABC, 4.62 million.
15. “NCIS: New Orleans,” CBS, 4.55 million.
16. “Saturday Night Football: Louisville vs Alabama,” ABC, 4.54 million.
17. “Bachelor in Paradise (Tuesday),” ABC, 4.16 million.
18. “Mom,” CBS, 3.88 million.
19. “Saturday Night Football Pre-Game,” ABC, 3.79 million
20. “Making It,” NBC, 3.66 million.
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.; CBS is a division of CBS Corp.; Fox is owned by 21st Century Fox; NBC is owned by NBC Universal.
Review: Director John Crowley’s “We Live In Time”
It's not hard to spend a few hours watching Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield fall and be in love. In "We Live In Time," filmmaker John Crowley puts the audience up close and personal with this photogenic British couple through the highs and lows of a relationships in their 30s.
Everyone starts to think about the idea of time, and not having enough of it to do everything they want, at some point. But it seems to hit a lot of us very acutely in that tricky, lovely third decade. There's that cruel biological clock, of course, but also careers and homes and families getting older. Throw a cancer diagnosis in there and that timer gets ever more aggressive.
While we, and Tobias (Garfield) and Almut (Pugh), do indeed live in time, as we're constantly reminded in big and small ways — clocks and stopwatches are ever-present, literally and metaphorically — the movie hovers above it. The storytelling jumps back and forth through time like a scattershot memory as we piece together these lives that intersect in an elaborate, mystical and darkly comedic way: Almut runs into Tobias with her car. Their first chat is in a hospital hallway, with those glaring fluorescent lights and him bruised and cut all over. But he's so struck by this beautiful woman in front of him, he barely seems to care.
I suppose this could be considered a Lubitschian "meet-cute" even if it knowingly pushes the boundaries of our understanding of that romance trope. Before the hit, Tobias was in a hotel, attempting to sign divorce papers and his pens were out of ink and pencils kept breaking. In a fit of near-mania he leaves, wearing only his bathrobe, to go to a corner store and buy more. Walking back, he drops something in the street and bang: A new relationship is born. It's the... Read More