\n\tAs Nielsen rolls out its updated ratings that crunch viewing data from millions of devices alongside its traditional sampling method, the company is also showcasing that data in a series of new reports.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe ratings service began implementing its \u201cbig data plus panel\u201d ratings for live telecasts on Sept. 1 and for all linear programming with the official start of the 2025-26 TV season on Sept. 22. With the first week of the season now complete, the company issued weekly numbers that are a bit different than what it has offered up in the past.<\/p>\n
\n\tThere are lists of the most watched broadcast and cable programs, as usual, but also a ranking just of the top 25 live sports programs<\/a> and, most intriguing, what Nielsen is calling its \u201ctotal scheduled programming chart.\u201d That lists the top 250 shows of the week regardless of time of day (primetime, daytime and late night are all together)\u00a0or origin \u2014\u00a0broadcast, cable, and even live streaming.<\/p>\n \n\tThe chart for the first week of the season, then, shows that Prime Video\u2019s Thursday Night Football telecast ranked sixth among all programs (excluding pre- and postgame shows for sports) with about 13.25 million viewer. The return of Jimmy Kimmel Live<\/a>! after a six-day suspension at ABC resulted in the show\u2019s biggest regularly scheduled episode ever \u2014\u00a0and the No. 17 spot for the week with 6.47 million viewers (revised up from 6.26 million<\/a> in preliminary numbers).<\/p>\n \n\tAlso of note: ABC\u2019s and NBC\u2019s evening newscasts each had multiple entries in the top 25 programs of the week. ABC\u2019s World News Tonight has spent multiple weeks in the past year as the No. 1 show on all of linear TV, so its entries in the rankings aren\u2019t surprising \u2014 but the data hasn\u2019t previously been packaged this way. <\/p>\n \n\tSome things remained the same as well, namely that football ruled the top of the rankings. NBC\u2019s finished on top for the week with 23.87 million viewers, edging CBS\u2019 Sunday late afternoon national game (most of the country saw the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Balitmore Ravens), which drew 23.77 million. CBS\u2019 60 Minutes was the top non-sports show of the week with a shade more than 10 million viewers. <\/p>\n \n\tThese Nielsen charts only show same-day viewing, meaning streaming after the initial airing and other delayed viewing aren\u2019t included. The big data addition to the ratings also doesn\u2019t appear to have had much effect on the entertainment programming that aired last week \u2014\u00a0but given that streaming can make up as much as half<\/a> of a network comedy or drama\u2019s eventual audience, that\u2019s also not a big surprise. <\/p>\n \n\tThe top 25 shows for the week of Sept. 22-28, based on same-day viewing, are below.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Nielsen rolls out its updated ratings that crunch viewing data from millions of devices alongside its traditional…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":271301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[10509,171,50812,63953,108480,173,10146,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-271300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-abc-news","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-jimmy-kimmel-live","11":"tag-nbc-news","12":"tag-sunday-night-football","13":"tag-tv","14":"tag-tv-ratings","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115303372954900185","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}