NEW YORK ā Perhaps sensing the abbreviated season might not last long, television viewers welcomed baseball back with open arms from its coronavirus hiatus.
ESPN's coverage of the first game back, between the New York Yankees and Washington Nationals last Thursday, was the most-watched regular season baseball game in nine years, the Nielsen company said.
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Weekend ratings were also solid. But considering that Major League Baseball on Tuesday temporarily suspended the Miami Marlins' season for the rest of the week because of their COVID-19 outbreak, there are fresh fears that the season will not be completed.
Fox's Saturday night coverage of Washington's win over the Yankees reached 2.8 million, or 19% over the average for all of its' prime-time games last year.
ESPN's weekend slate of games, taken as a whole, were up 70% percent in audience over weekend games last year, Nielsen said.
News programming continued to dominate prime time last week, led by a CBS rerun of ā60 Minutes."
CBS led all broadcast networks with an average of 3.1 million viewers in prime time. NBC had 2.8 million, ABC had 2.2 million, Fox had 1.6 million, Univision had 1.4 million, ION Television had 1.1 million and Telemundo average 880,000.
Fox News Channel led the cable networks, averaging 3.05 million viewers in prime time. MSNBC had 2.04 million, CNN had 1.36 million, HGTV had 1.3 million and TLC had 1.29 million.
ABC's āWorld News Tonightā led the evening newscasts with an average of 8.8 million viewers. NBC's āNightly Newsā had 7.6 million, and the āCBS Evening Newsā had 5.3 million.
For the week of July 20-26, the 20 most popular prime-time programs, their networks and viewerships:
1. ā60 Minutes,ā CBS, 6.52 million.
2. āNCIS,ā CBS, 5.36 million.
3. āAmerica's Got Talent,ā NBC, 5.08 million.
4. āCelebrity Family Feud,ā ABC, 4.44 million.
5. āHannityā (Thursday), Fox News, 4.35 million.
6. āHannityā (Wednesday), Fox News, 4.29 million.
7. āTucker Carlson Tonightā (Wednesday), Fox News, 4.24 million.
8. āHannityā (Tuesday), Fox News, 4.17 million.
9. āFBI,ā CBS, 4.12 million.
10. āYoung Sheldon,ā CBS, 4.113 million.
11. āTucker Carlson Tonightā (Tuesday), Fox News, 4.105 million.
12. ML Baseball: N.Y. Yankees at Washington, ESPN, 4.08 million.
13. āAmerica's Funniest Home Videos,ā ABC, 4.05 million.
14. āTucker Carlson Tonightā (Thursday), Fox News, 4.023 million.
15. āTucker Carlson Tonightā (Monday), Fox News, 4.022 million.
16. āHannityā (Monday), Fox News, 3.9 million.
17. āTitan Games,ā NBC, 3.82 million.
18. āChicago PD,ā NBC, 3.78 million.
19. āThe Neighborhood,ā CBS, 3.77 million.
20. āYellowstone,ā Paramount, 3.68 million.