20/20 may have won the recently-completed 2018/2019 prime time broadcast season, but Dateline has started the summer off with a bang, earning victories on back-to-back nights.
Not only did the NBC newsmagazine top its competition from ABC across the board on Friday, but it was also the No. 1 network show of the night among adults 18-49, the go-to demo for entertainment programming.
Friday’s episode of Dateline aired from 10 – 11 p.m., averaging 3.3 million viewers, 941,000 A25-54 viewers, and 749,000 adults 18-49.
20/20 continued to air Fridays from 9 – 11 p.m., and averaged 3.2 million total viewers on June 21.
NBC aired a special edition of Dateline the following evening (Dateline Saturday Night Mystery). The special ended up the being the No. 1 program in Saturday prime time across the big four networks in total viewers.
Featuring a report from Dennis Murphy, the June 22 edition of Saturday Night Mystery delivered 2.9 million total viewers, 719,000 adults 25-54 and 555,000 adults 18-49.
CBS’ 48 Hours, which is traditionally the most-watched Saturday non-sports show in prime time (when in-season), averaged 1.6 million total viewers.