Sunday Show Ratings: October 29

By A.J. Katz 

Moderated by John Dickerson, CBS’s Face the Nation continues to benefit from its CBS Sunday Morning lead-in, and once again ranked as the most-watched Sunday public affairs show of the week.

Despite its No. 1 ranking in total viewers, the Oct. 29 edition of FTN was -8 percent from the comparable broadcast last year. The program was also -24 percent in the A25-54 news demo, finishing behind NBC and ABC in that measurement. That Oct. 30, 2016 broadcast featured Dickerson’s sit down with then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, and the show aired a portion of Dickerson’s interview with vp Joe Biden.

NBC’s Meet the Press With Chuck Todd continues to reign supreme among all Sunday shows among the A25-54 news demographic. MTP was the sole Sunday show to deliver over 1 million viewers from the demo, has now finished No. 1 among A25-54 for 15 consecutive broadcasts and for 20 of the last 21 months.

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But the Oct. 29 episode of MTP was -8 percent in total viewers, and -11 percent among A25-54 versus last year.

ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopoulos finished the week No. 3 in total viewers, and No. 2 in the A25-54 news demo. The episode posted double digit year over year audience declines in key categories, -14 percent in total viewers and -13 percent among adults 25-54.

ABC, NBC and CBS’s Sunday shows were all down year-over-year, which is no surprise considering we are rapidly approaching the one-year anniversary of Election Day, 2016.

But don’t tell that to FOX. Fox News Sunday, moderated by Chris Wallace, was +22 percent in total viewers versus same Sunday last year. That said, the program lost traction among younger news viewers, -6 percent from last year among A25-54. The show’s trio of cable replays combined for 2.66 million total viewers and 551,000 demo viewers. Altogether, that’s 4.12 million total viewers and 947,000 demo viewers.

*Face the Nation’s second half-hour was broadcast contiguously across 59.8 percent of the CBS affiliates, and the program did not air in Minneapolis or Cleveland markets due to local NFL blackout (the teams played Sunday morning in London).

October 29, 2017:

Network Program Total Viewers A25-54
CBS Face the Nation (1/2 hr) 3.408 M 704 k
NBC Meet the Press 3.396 M 1.009 M
ABC This Week 2.950 M 816 k
FOX Fox News Sunday 1.456 M 396 k
UNIV Al Punto  *n/a  *n/a

Al Punto ratings will be added when made available.

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