On May 3, NBC Meet the Press with Chuck Todd finished No. 1 in the Sunday show ratings race.
The first-run broadcast of Meet the Press averaged 3.82 million Total Viewers on NBC, which is +33% (+941,000) more than ABC and +4% (164,000) more total viewers than CBS.
MTP also won the Sunday show race in the key A25-54 demo, which it usually does, averaging 847,000 viewers in that measurement. The program averaged +37% (+227,000) more demo viewers than ABC and +7% (+56,000) more than CBS.
An additional 627,000 Total Viewers and 134,000 Adults 25-54 watched the Sunday program through a re-air on NBC.
CBS’ Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan took second place, both in Total Viewers and among Adults 25-54 for the second consecutive week, while ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos took third place this past week, both in Total Viewers and in the key Adults 25-54 demo.
Season to date, This Week is improving in both Total Viewers (+4% – 3.07 million vs. 2.95 million) and Adults 25-54 (+4% – 719,000 vs. 693,000), seeing its most-watched season in three years—since the 2016-17 season.
Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace drew 1.53 million Total Viewers and 396,000 demo viewers on the Fox network. The cable replays hauled in a combined 2 million Total Viewers and 340,000 demo viewers. Altogether, that’s roughly 3.53 million Total Viewers and 736,000 demo viewers.
It looks as though the Sunday show viewership is slowly crawling back to pre-Covid-19 coverage levels, which isn’t exactly a good thing.
Versus the prior Sunday (April 26), Meet the Press was -14% in Total Viewers and -20% in the key demo. That’s despite coming in first place. Face the Nation fell in Total Viewers (-10%) and was -8% in the demo. This Week was also down in Total Viewers (-10%) and the demo (-13%). Fox News Sunday experienced the least severe drop-off: -3% Total Viewers and -6% in the demo.
Despite the week-to-week losses for each of the shows, their ratings remained strong relative to the same Sunday in 2019. MTP was +24% in Total Viewers and +22% in the demo. FTN was +29% in Total Viewers and +36% in the demo. This Week was +15% in Total Viewers, but just +3% in the demo, and Fox News Sunday was +26% in Total Viewers and +25% in the key A25-54 demo.
The May 3 Nielsen numbers for the first-run broadcast:
| Network | Program | Total Viewers | A25-54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NBC | Meet the Press | 3,821,000 | 847,000 |
| CBS | Face the Nation | 3,657,000 | 791,000 |
| ABC | This Week | 2,880,000 | 620,000 |
| FOX | Fox News Sunday | 1,530,000 | 396,000 |
Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI (Total Viewers and Adults 25-54); Live + SD for 5/3/20, 4/26/20 and 5/5/19 or as dated. Most Current: 2019 -2020 Season (9/23/19 – 5/3/20) and 2018 -2019 Season (9/24/19 – 5/5/19). Most Averages based on regular telecasts.