Rough week for Fox broadcast in television ratings

NEW YORK (AP) - It felt like a summer week on the Fox broadcasting network - and that’s not a good thing.

Bereft of hits and in the traditional April lull before the last big month of the traditional TV season, Fox averaged a paltry 2.2 million viewers last week. Its most popular show, “Empire,” aired a rerun that had barely over 3 million viewers.

Its most popular show last week, an episode of “Masterchef Junior,” ranked No. 49 for the week, the Nielsen company said.

As is becoming more frequent, as many people watched Fox News Channel in prime time as its corporate sister on broadcast.

Despite having many of its shows in repeats, CBS won the week in prime time with an average of 6.7 million viewers. NBC had 5.1 million, ABC had 4.1 million, Univision had 1.7 million, Telemundo had 1.6 million, ION television had 1.2 million and the CW had 660,000.

TNT was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 3.08 million viewers with the help of the NBA playoffs. Fox News Channel had 2.24 million, HGTV had 1.402 million, MSNBC had 1.4 million and TBS had 1.32 million.

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.84 million viewers. ABC’s “World News Tonight” was second with 7.78 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.3 million viewers.

For the week of April 17-23, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “NCIS,” CBS, 13.33 million; “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 11.19 million; “Bull,” CBS, 10.32 million; “NCIS: New Orleans,” CBS, 10.16 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 9.9 million; “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 9.57 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 9.44 million; “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 8.85 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 8.45 million; “Little Big Shots,” NBC, 8.4 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox is owned by 21st Century Fox. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.

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Online:

https://www.nielsen.com