‘The Big Bang Theory’ regains its spot at top of ratings

NEW YORK (AP) - As it heads toward the end of another season, CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory” has regained its familiar spot at the top of the television rankings.

The CBS comedy was seen by nearly 13 million people last week, the Nielsen company said. The revived “Rosanne,” which has created a sensation since returning to the air on ABC this spring, slipped to fourth in last week’s ratings, with an audience of 10.43 million viewers last Tuesday.

CBS’ “NCIS” was the second most-popular show of the week for the first of a two-episode arc featuring actress Pauley Perrette’s exit after 15 years of playing the character Abby.

Thirteen of the week’s 20 most-watched shows were on CBS and five were on ABC. The other two were episodes of “The Voice” on NBC.

Network executives have spent the past few weeks looking at pilots to determine which new shows will hit the air next season. The networks announce their plans for the fall to advertisers next week in New York.

CBS won the week in prime time, averaging 6.7 million viewers. ABC had 4.9 million viewers, NBC had 4.5 million, Fox had 2.5 million, Univision had 1.4 million, ION Television had 1.2 million, Telemundo had 1.1 million and the CW had 1 million.

TNT was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 3.32 million viewers in prime time. Fox News Channel had 2.3 million viewers, MSNBC had 1.71 million, ESPN had 1.33 million and USA had 1.28 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.9 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 8.5 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.5 million viewers.

For the week of April 30-May 6, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 12.93 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 12.36 million; “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 11.67 million; “Roseanne,” ABC, 10.43 million; “Bull,” CBS, 10.38 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 9.12 million; “The Voice” (Monday, 8 p.m.), NBC, 8.82 million; “American Idol” (Sunday), ABC, 8.65 million; “Mom,” CBS, 8.63 million; “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 8.48 million.

___

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.

___

Online:

http://www.nielsen.com