All articles tagged with #ratings
CBS's Survivor 50 premiere drew 5.06 million viewers and delivered CBS's best Wednesday night in four years, peaking at 6.18 million in the opener's first half-hour. The three-hour debut was up 26% from the fall 2025 premiere and 19% from the spring 2025 premiere, and CBS noted the night was 81% higher in total viewers than NBC. The episode featured familiar fans and marked the start of Survivor's 50th season.
Late-night hosts, led by Stephen Colbert, riffed on President Trump’s State of the Union ratings, which dropped about 11% from last year to roughly 32.6 million viewers; Colbert quipped that Trump is 'dragging down broadcast television' and even floated canceling him, with Fallon and Kimmel delivering their own punchlines about the political spotlight and related investigations.
Trump's Feb. 24 State of the Union drew about 32.6 million viewers, the lowest among his congressional/SOTU addresses and well below his 2017 peak of 47.7 million, though Biden's 2021 inauguration had 33.8 million and his 2024 SOTU 32.2 million. The speech ran 1 hour, 47 minutes, 40 seconds, with roughly 2.05 million viewers aged 18–34, 5.96 million aged 35–54, and 23.62 million aged 55+. Nielsen tracks both network broadcasts and streaming; figures may be updated as data evolves.
NBCUniversal revealed that 20.7 million viewers watched the USA vs. Canada Olympic men’s hockey gold medal game across NBC, Peacock, and USA Network, peaking at 26 million during overtime, making it the most-watched pre-9 AM sporting event in U.S. history and NBC Sports’ biggest non-NFL streaming event on Peacock.
Donald Trump’s State of the Union address drew about 28 million viewers across eight major networks, per early Nielsen data. Fox News led in total viewers with 9.1 million, ABC News topped broadcasters with 5.1 million, followed by NBC (3.6M) and CBS (3.3M), with other outlets also in the mix; final figures will be released later. The article also notes 25–54 demo tallies and compares with last year’s roughly 32 million viewers.
NBC and Peacock combined to average 18.6 million viewers for the U.S.-Canada Olympic men’s hockey final, the largest hockey audience since 2010, with 3.7 million streaming viewers and encore airings pushing total reach to about 20.7 million; Nielsen-only figures would be around 14.9 million, underscoring NBC’s success leveraging streaming and new measurement methods for Olympic hockey’s marquee moment.
The 2026 Winter Olympics averaged 23.5 million viewers, up 96% from Beijing and the highest TV audience since Sochi, signaling a strong broadcast performance.
The VA published a final rule effective Feb. 17 that will determine disability ratings based on whether prescribed medications or treatments improve a veteran’s condition, potentially lowering ratings for those whose symptoms are alleviated. VA says it formalizes a longstanding practice, while veterans groups warn it changes how claims are evaluated, could discourage treatment, and may affect millions of beneficiaries.
All-Star Weekend TV ratings have fallen and tanking remains a controversial issue, while Commissioner Adam Silver gave a tightly controlled press conference with limited accountability or concrete solutions. Observers question whether his leadership can revive a league whose engagement and attendance are waning despite lucrative media deals and ongoing format experiments, with players like LeBron James offering skeptical takes on the new directions.
The revived Muppet Show special, which premiered Feb. 4 on Disney+ and ABC, has grown to 7.58 million cross‑platform viewers after eight days of delayed viewing—more than doubling its ABC debut of 3.07 million—and sits on par with ABC comedies’ seven‑day totals. The update underscores strong multi‑platform demand for the updated variety show, which also features Sabrina Carpenter and serves as a potential pilot for future episodes; critics gave it positive notices.
Peacock and NBCUniversal are enjoying a record-setting Olympic week, with the Milan Cortina Games delivering 6.3 billion minutes viewed across Peacock and NBCU digital outlets through mid-event—outpacing combined totals from 2018 and 2022. NBCUniversal’s Olympic programming is drawing 25.7 million viewers across its platforms at the point, about 60% higher than the 2022 Games, while the Super Bowl’s roughly 125 million viewers place Peacock/ NBCU at the center of the action. Olympic rights costs remain substantial (about $7.75 billion for 2022–2032, plus a $3 billion extension for 2034–2036), and Peacock’s growth in late 2025 comes with ongoing losses linked to sports rights and streaming NFL games.
Early ratings put Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show ahead of Turning Point USA’s All-American Halftime Show: initial figures suggest about 4 million viewers for TPUSA’s broadcast versus roughly 6.1 million concurrent YouTube viewers for Bad Bunny, with TPUSA’s video views climbing into the tens of millions and Bad Bunny’s performance projected to reach around 128 million viewers overall, making it one of the most-watched halftime shows; Trump criticized Bunny after the performance while Kid Rock headlined the conservative alternative.
NBC has pulled the final six episodes of the medical drama Brilliant Minds from its schedule and put the show on hiatus while Olympics coverage airs, with The Voice: Battle of Champions taking over Mondays 9–11 p.m. starting Feb. 23. The remaining Brilliant Minds episodes will be aired later in the season or this summer. The move follows lower ratings for Brilliant Minds in Season 2, and NBC will decide the show's fate by the May upfront; The Voice Season 29 is framed as a champions edition featuring past winners.
The Texans-Patriots divisional-round game drew an average of 37.9 million viewers on ESPN/ABC, the largest ABC sports audience outside the Super Bowl and matching last year’s Rams-Eagles; the four divisional games averaged 38.7 million.
NBC's Rams-Bears Sunday night playoff thriller drew 45.4 million viewers on NBC/Peacock, peaking at 52.6 million late in the game. It stands as NBC’s largest division-round audience since 1988, surpassing the Oilers-Chiefs 1994 game by more than four million, with about 5.3 million viewers streaming the contest.