NBA Finals helped ABC retain its ratings crown last week

NEW YORK (AP) - On a rerun-riddled schedule last week, viewers flocked to the limited ration of fresh fare, according to Nielsen.

Game 5 of the NBA Finals was by far the week’s big attraction, drawing more than 24 million viewers to ABC to land the week’s top spot.

NBC grabbed the next three slots with its participation-variety shows “America’s Got Talent,” ’’World of Dance” and “Little Big Shots.”

ABC’s “Celebrity Family Feud” placed seventh, and the season premiere of NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior” was 12th-ranked, just ahead of “Steve Harvey’s Funderdome” on ABC.

Mostly, the lineup was a sea of reruns, including even CBS’ “60 Minutes,” which ranked 11th. But with an audience of 5.4 million, it was far ahead of NBC’s rival newsmagazine, “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly,” which, despite a much-hyped new segment with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, finished a disappointing 38th place with a viewership of 3.6 million.

Overall, ABC remained dominant in prime time for its third week, averaging 5.34 million viewers, while NBC was second with 4.53 million. CBS had 4.15 million viewers, Fox had 2.60 million, Univision had 1.42 million, ION Television had 1.27 million, Telemundo had 940,000 and the CW had 780,000.

Fox News Channel remained the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.29 million viewers in prime time. MSNBC had 1.88 million, TBS had 1.51 million and HGTV had 1.48 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” was the front-runner among evening newscasts with an average of 7.65 million viewers, but NBC’s “Nightly News” was close behind with 7.58 million. The “CBS Evening News” had 5.96 million.

For the week of June 12-18, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NBA Finals: Cleveland at Golden State, Game 5, ABC, 24.53 million; “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday), NBC, 12.70 million; “World of Dance,” NBC, 8.04 million; “Little Big Shots,” NBC, 7.29 million; NBA Countdown - Game 5, ABC, 6.81 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 6.75 million; “Celebrity Family Feud” (Sunday), ABC, 6.25 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 6.14 million; “Bull,” CBS, 5.64 million; “Blue Bloods,” CBS, 5.62 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