Among the big winners from last week’s Republican presidential debates: Fox News Channel.
Its Thursday night airing of the A-list debate, which gathered the 10 highest-polling GOP hopefuls including Donald Trump, was by far the most-watched program of the week on either cable or broadcast, drawing 24 million viewers, according to the Nielsen company.
That was more than twice the audience for the week’s second-ranked show, NBC’s Hall of Fame Game, seen by 11 million viewers.
Following the debate, “The Kelly File,” hosted by debate co-moderator Megyn Kelly, was seen by nearly 11 million, ranking third for the week.
And even Thursday’s earlier GOP faceoff, spotlighting lesser-polling candidates, won Fox News Channel six million viewers (as the week’s 16th-highest-ranked show).
With a huge boost from those debates, Fox News Channel was easily the week’s most popular cable network overall, averaging 4.26 million viewers. Disney was next, averaging 1.82 million, followed by TNT with 1.62 million and USA with 1.57 million.
Among broadcast networks, NBC won the week in prime time, averaging 5.6 million viewers in its first victory week since May. Runner-up CBS had 5.2 million, followed by ABC with 3.6 million, Fox with 2.1 million, Univision with 1.9 million, Telemundo with 1.5 million, ION Television with 1.1 million and the CW with 1.0 million.
NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.9 million viewers. ABC’s “World News” was second with 7.5 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.6 million viewers.
Below are prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Aug. 3-9. Listings include the week’s ranking and viewership.
1. Republican Presidential Debate, Fox News Channel, 24.00 million.
2. Hall of Fame Game, Pittsburgh vs. Minnesota, NBC, 10.98 million.
3. “The Kelly File,” Fox News Channel, 10.93 million.
4. “America’s Got Talent,” NBC, 10.21 million viewers.
5. “NBC NFL Preseason Pre-Kick,” NBC, 8.98 million.
6. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 8.72 million.
7. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 7.17 million.
8. “NCIS,” CBS, 7.10 million.
9. “America’s Got Talent Best-Ofs,” NBC, 6.99 million.
10. “Big Brother” (Sunday), CBS, 6.62 million.
11. “Big Brother” (Wednesday), CBS, 6.584 million.
12. “The O’Reilly Factor,” Fox News Channel, 6.581 million.
13. “American Ninja Warriors,” NBC, 6.52 million.
14. “Big Brother” (Thursday), CBS, 6.23 million.
15. “Republican Presidential Debate,” Fox News Channel, 6.06 million.
16. “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 6.02 million.
17. “Zoo,” CBS, 5.95 million.
18. “Mom,” CBS, 5.49 million.
19. “Blue Bloods,” CBS, 5.40 million.
20. “CMA Music Festival,” ABC, 5.23 million.
