CBS, NBC and ABC engaged in a close battle for May 10 Sunday show ratings supremacy. CBS’ Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan ended up with the most Total Viewers, ending Meet the Press’ winning streak in the category.
Face the Nation averaged 3.83 million total viewers, more than the competition. The CBS Sunday public affairs show won March in Total viewers, but its ratings had been falling as of late. Not the case this past Sunday.
Meet the Press with Chuck Todd won the Sunday show race in the key A25-54 demo, which it usually does, averaging 796,000 viewers in that measurement. The program averaged +22% (+142,000) more demo viewers than ABC and +9% (+67,000) more than CBS.
An additional 767,000 total viewers and 163,000 A25-54 demo viewers watched the Sunday program through a re-airs on NBC and MSNBC.
Meet the Press remains the No.1 Sunday show for the 2019-2020 season.
ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos took third place this past week, both in Total Viewers and in the key Adults 25-54 demo, but was the only Sunday show to post week-to-week viewership growth.
Season to date, This Week is improving in both Total Viewers (+4% – 3.07 million versus 2.95 million) and Adults 25-54 (+3% – 717,000 versus 694,000), and is seeing its most-watched season in three years—since the 2016-17 season.
Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace drew 1.43 million Total Viewers and 381,000 demo viewers on the Fox network. The cable replays hauled in a combined 3.27 million Total Viewers and 479,000 demo viewers. Altogether, that’s roughly 4.7 million Total Viewers and 860,000 demo viewers.
Versus the prior Sunday (May 3), Face the Nation was +5% in Total Viewers, but -8% in the demo. Meet the Press was -1% in Total Viewers and -6% in the demo. This Week put up a solid performance week to week: +6% in Total Viewers and +5% in the key demo. Fox News Sunday was down week to week in multiple measurements, -6% in Total Viewers and -4% in the key demo.
And lastly, each of the Sunday shows posted year-over-year growth in Total Viewers.
The May 10 numbers for the first-run broadcast:
| Network | Program | Total Viewers | A25-54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBS | Face the Nation | 3,828,000 | 729,000 |
| NBC | Meet the Press | 3,766,000 | 796,000 |
| ABC | This Week | 3,050,000 | 654,000 |
| FOX | Fox News Sunday | 1,431,000 | 381,000 |
Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI (Total Viewers and Adults 25-54); Live + SD for 5/10/20, 5/3/20 and 5/12/19 or as dated. Most Current: 2019 -2020 Season (9/23/19 – 5/10/20) and 2018 -2019 Season (9/24/19 – 5/12/19). Most Averages based on regular telecasts.