‘America’s Got Talent’ wins ratings week

Coverage of the final round of golf’s PGA Championship on CBS and the 15th-anniversary special of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” were last week’s only prime-time programming to average more than 5 million viewers, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen Tuesday.

The prime-time portion of Sunday’s final PGA round averaged 6.328 million viewers. CBS’ six hours, seven minutes of final-round coverage averaged 5.15 million viewers, 3% more than the 5.15-million average for the final round in 2019.

The coverage was not considered an official prime-time program because most of it aired before the start of prime time. However, the prime-time portion is included in CBS’ weekly average of 3.67 million, its most since the week of June 8-14, when it averaged 3.84 million viewers.

“America’s Got Talent” was officially the highest-rated program for the eighth time in 11 weeks of television’s summer season.

A rerun of CBS’ action drama “NCIS” was second, averaging 4.913 million viewers.

Sunday’s edition of “60 Minutes,” whose two segments were both reruns, averaged 4.136 million viewers, fifth among prime-time broadcast and cable programs between Aug. 3 and Sunday. The CBS News magazine began two hours, seven minutes later than usual in the Eastern and Central time zones.

Viewership was 42% less than the previous week’s edition, which averaged 7.132 million viewers to finish first for the week.

The two-hour season premiere of “Big Brother,” the first in its 22-season history to include the revealing of the cast and being broadcast live in the Eastern and Central time zones, finished first in its Wednesday 9-11 p.m. time slot, averaging 3.661 million viewers, 20th for the week.

Viewership was up 44.8% from CBS’ programming in the Wednesday time slot a week earlier: reruns of “The Price Is Right Primetime Special: Big Brother Edition,” which averaged 2.995 million, and “SEAL Team,” which averaged 2.061 million.

The season’s second “Big Brother” episode won its Sunday 10-11 p.m. time slot, averaging 2.954 million viewers, 43rd for the week.

The victory was CBS’ fifth in a row, 23rd in 28 weeks and 28th in the 46-week-old 2019-20 season.

Fox News Channel was second, averaging 3.092 million, followed by NBC, which averaged 2.72 million, and ABC, which averaged 2.31 million. Fox was fourth among the broadcast networks and seventh overall, averaging 1.31 million viewers for its 16 hours, 29 minutes of programming.

Fox News Channel was the top-rated cable network for the 29th consecutive week, averaging 3.065 million viewers. It had each of the week’s six most-watched cable programs and nine of the top 10 — five editions of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and four of “Hannity.”

“Tucker Carlson Tonight” had the biggest audience on cable, averaging 4.076 million viewers, sixth overall. The overall Top 10 included two episodes each of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and “Hannity.”

MSNBC was second among cable networks for the ninth consecutive week, averaging 1.975 million viewers. CNN was third for the ninth consecutive week, averaging 1.345 million.