Each of the English language Sunday public affairs programs grew in the July 2016 sweeps period from July 2015.
CBS’ Face the Nation with John Dickerson was the most-watched Sunday show for July 2016. FTN delivered its best July sweeps period in 22 years, and ironically improved 22 percent in total viewers as well as 29 percent in the key news demo from July 2015.
NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd won July sweeps in the key news demo, despite only being rated for two of the four Sundays due to NBC Sports programming. Meet the Press delivered its most-watched July sweeps since 2008, and improved 26 percent in total viewers and 41 percent in the news demo, the most year-over-year growth for any of the Sunday shows.
ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos finished No. 3 in both key categories for July sweeps. This Week grew 10 percent in total viewers and 2 percent in the news demo compared to July 2015 sweeps.
Fox News Sunday also improved this past month from its July 2015 sweeps performance: +10 percent in total viewers and +7 percent in A25-54.
Editor’s Note: Face the Nation’s second half-hour was broadcast contiguously across 78.31% of the CBS affiliates.
The numbers for July 2016 Sweep:
| Network | Program | Total Viewers | A25-54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NBC | Meet The Press | 3.231 M | 1.011 M |
| CBS | Face the Nation | 3.294 M | 785,000 |
| ABC | This Week | 2.955 M | 844,000 |
| FOX | Fox News Sunday | 1.371 M | 396,000 |
| UNIV | Al Punto | N/A | N/A |
*Al Punto averages will be added when made available.
This Week was the No. 1 Sunday public affairs program for July 31. George Stephanopoulos interviewed Donald Trump, an occurrence which tends to attract eyeballs. As a result, This Week delivered its largest overall audience in four months, and its strongest demo performance in five months. The program was up 30 percent in total viewers and up 22 percent in A25-54 from the comparable Sunday in 2015 (Aug 2).
Face the Nation finished No. 2 in total viewers, and delivered a 27 percent improvement from the same Sunday in 2015. FTN also improved 39 percent in the news demo, despite the Trump/FTN competition.
Fox News Sunday, featuring a Chris Wallace interview with Secretary Hillary Clinton, provided a 6 percent boost in total viewers and an 11 percent drop in news demo compared to the same Sunday a year ago. Apparently Fox News viewers weren’t particularly interested in hearing from Secretary Clinton. The 5 cable repeats of this episode delivered a combined 4.99 million total viewers and 1.01 million viewers from the news demo.
Univision’s Al Punto increased its audience slightly from the comparable Sunday last year among Adults 25-54 (+6 percent). All in all, the program is attracting an audience base that is 12 years younger than the combined average viewer of its English-language broadcast Sunday morning counterparts in the current 2015/2016 season (50 years old vs. 62 years old).
Due to the Women’s British Open, Meet the Press with Chuck Todd was rescheduled and retitled to “Meet the Press-MTP” and the telecast is excluded from the season averages.
Editor’s Note: Face the Nation’s second half-hour was broadcast contiguously across 78.31% of the CBS affiliates.
The numbers for July 31, 2016:
| Network | Program | Total Viewers | A25-54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NBC | Meet The Press | 3.013 M | 975,000 |
| CBS | Face the Nation | 3.510 M | 935,000 |
| ABC | This Week | 3.571 M | 1.037 M |
| FOX | Fox News Sunday | 1.508 M | 403,000 |
| UNIV | Al Punto | 834,000 | 381,000 |