NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd experienced a solid Sunday, ratings-wise. The broadcast, which included interviews with former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Marco Rubio, delivered over 4.1 million total viewers, topping CBS’ Face the Nation by +19 percent, its largest margin of victory since November 2015. In addition to finishing as the No. 1 Sunday public affairs show across the board, MTP posted year-over-year audience growth in the demo (+5 percent) and in total viewers (+2 percent). No other English language Sunday show grew year-over-year.
Face the Nation with John Dickerson ranked No. 2 in total viewers and No. 3 in the key A25-54 news demo this past week. FTN posted year-over-year audience declines both in the demo (-5 percent) and in total viewers (-7 percent).
ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos beat Face the Nation in the news demo, but fell short in total viewers. The program held steady in total audience, but struggled in the demo, -10 percent from the same Sunday one year ago. This season, the program is drawing its largest total audience since 1998-1999.
Fox News Sunday hosted by Chris Wallace struggled relative to the same Sunday last year, when Rush Limbaugh was Wallace’s guest. The original FOX broadcast of the program was -12 percent in total viewers and -5 percent in the demo from last year. The trio of cable replays combined for 3.7 million viewers and 538,000 from the demo. Combined with the original telecast, FNS delivered 5.4 million total viewers and 1.4 from the demo on March 5.
Univision’s Al Punto had a good Sunday, and delivered more than 1.1 million total viewers. The program increased its total audience from the same Sunday in 2016 (+21 percent), improved among millennials (+19 percent) and among adults 25-54 (+10 percent). Al Punto once again out-performed ABC, CBS and FOX in the millennial demographic, and beat FOX for the 6th straight week among viewers 18-49.
*Editor’s note: Face the Nation’s second half-hour was broadcast contiguously across 80.6 percent of the CBS affiliates.
The numbers for March 5:
| Network | Program | Total Viewers | A25-54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NBC | Meet the Press | 4.128M | 1.220M |
| CBS | Face the Nation | 3.483M | 808,000 |
| ABC | This Week | 3.335M | 853,000 |
| FOX | Fox News Sunday | 1.663M | 538,000 |
| UNIV | Al Punto | 1.103M | 484,000 |