The Sunday public affairs shows for ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX each saw year-over-year total viewer declines on Daylight Savings Sunday.
Meet the Press with Chuck Todd won the Sunday show race yet again. This marks the program’s 7th win out of the past 8 weeks among total viewers, and the 9th straight week it ranked No. 1 in the key news demo. Yet despite a victory for MTP, numbers were down from the same Sunday in 2016, -3 percent in total viewers and -4 percent in the news demo.
CBS’s Face the Nation moderated by John Dickerson ranked No.2, and was -12 percent in total viewers and -21 percent in the demo from the same Sunday last year.
ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos ranked No. 3 in both key categories, and was barely edged by Face the Nation in the news demo. This Week delivered a -2 percent year over year decline in total viewers, but posted slight year-over-year growth in the news demo (+1 percent). ABC’s Sunday public affairs program continues to draw its largest overall audience in 18 years– since the 1998-99 season.
Fox News Sunday moderated by Chris Wallace posted a less than stellar Sunday ratings performance relative to March 13, 2016. The program was -16 percent in total viewers and -10 percent in the news demo.
Al Punto with Jorge Ramos posted +3 percent year-over-year growth among total viewers, but saw a sharp drop among viewers from the A25-54 news demo (-15 percent). Nevertheless, the program continues to attract younger viewers, defeating ABC among 18-34 for the 3rd straight week and also surpassing CBS and FOX in the category in the current 2016-2017 season.
The numbers for March 12:
| Network | Program | Total Viewers | A25-54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NBC | Meet the Press | 3.812M | 1.157M |
| CBS | Face the Nation | 3.496M | 837,000 |
| ABC | This Week | 3.045M | 836,000 |
| FOX | Fox News Sunday | 1.546M | 505,000 |
| UNIV | Al Punto | 768,000 | 332,000 |