Biden drew more viewers in otherwise quiet TV week

President Joe Biden delivers his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Tuesday, March 1, 2022, in Washington as Vice President Kamala Harris applauds and House speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., looks on. (Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times via AP, Pool) (Sarahbeth Maney, The New York Times)

NEW YORK ā€“ In an otherwise quiet week for television, President Joe Biden was the biggest star.

An estimated 38.2 million people watched him deliver his first State of the Union speech last week, spread across several networks that carried it. Fox News Channel, where 7.2 million people watched, had the biggest single audience, the Nielsen company said.

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Otherwise, no prime-time program exceeded 8 million live viewers. On a typical night, ABC's ā€œWorld News Tonightā€ with David Muir had a bigger audience than anything else on TV last week.

Among individual prime-time shows, ā€œ60 Minutesā€ finished on top for the second week in a row, Nielsen said.

CBS won the week in prime time with an average of 4.6 million viewers. ABC had 3.9 million, NBC had 3.2 million, Fox had 1.9 million, Univision had 1.4 million, Ion Television had 1.1 million and Telemundo had 930,000.

Fox News Channel led the cable networks in prime time with an average of 3.51 million viewers. CNN had 1.81 million, MSNBC had 1.64 million, ESPN had 1.29 million and HGTV had 1.1 million.

ABC's ā€œWorld News Tonightā€ won the evening news ratings race with an average of 8.8 million viewers, NBC's ā€œNightly Newsā€ had 7.3 million and the ā€œCBS Evening Newsā€ had 5.1 million.

For the week of Feb. 28-March 6, the 20 most-watched programs in prime time, their networks and viewerships:

1. ā€œ60 Minutes,ā€ CBS, 7.99 million.

2. ā€œState of the Union,ā€ Fox News, 7.21 million.

3. ā€œThe Equalizer,ā€ CBS, 7.13 million.

4. ā€œNCIS,ā€ CBS, 7.12 million.

5. ā€œChicago Med,ā€ NBC, 7.05 million.

6. ā€œChicago Fire,ā€ NBC, 6.89 million.

7. ā€œState of the Union Preview,ā€ Fox News, 6.62 million.

8. ā€œAmerican Idol,ā€ ABC, 6.57 million.

9. ā€œState of the Union Analysis" (10:10-10:32 p.m. Eastern), Fox News, 6.55 million.

10. ā€œYoung Sheldon,ā€ CBS, 6.48 million.

11. ā€œState of the Union,ā€ ABC, 6.3 million.

12. ā€œState of the Union: Republican Response,ā€ Fox News, 5.98 million.

13. ā€œAmerica's Funniest Home Videos,ā€ ABC, 5.91 million.

14. ā€œBlue Bloods,ā€ CBS, 5.9 million.

15. ā€œChicago PD,ā€ NBC, 5.81 million.

16. ā€œThe Neighborhood,ā€ CBS, 5.7 million.

17. ā€œGhosts,ā€ CBS, 5.52 million.

18. ā€œBob Hearts Abishola,ā€ CBS, 5.5 million.

19. ā€œNCIS: Los Angeles,ā€ CBS, 5.45 million.

20. ā€œState of the Union Analysisā€ (10:46-11 p.m. Eastern), Fox News, 5.44 million.


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