On the heels of Mitt Romney‘s announcement of Paul Ryan as his running mate, NBC’s “Meet the Press” was the top political affairs show last week. “MTP” won despite lower national coverage (91%) and an unusual airtime, live across all time zones at 9amET/6amPT, due to NBC’s coverage of the Olympics.
ABC’s “This Week” comes in second in both ratings measurements. CBS’ “Face the Nation,” which has won the last five weeks straight, was in third place. Nancy Cordes sat in for Bob Schieffer, who was en route to North Carolina for his sit-down with Romney and Ryan.
Compared to the same week last year, “Face the Nation” and “This Week” are up in Total Viewers, while “Meet the Press,” “Fox News Sunday” and Univision’s “Al Punto” are down. In the A25-54 demographic, “MTP” is the only show to be up year-over-year.
Cable replays of “Fox News Sunday,” which was hosted this week by John Roberts, averaged a combined 2,009,000 Total Viewers and 495,000 A25-54 viewers.
“Face the Nation” is based on the first half-hour only, as the full contiguous hour airs in just 69% of the country.
The numbers for August 12:
| Network | Program | Total Viewers | A25-54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NBC |
“Meet the Press” | 3.15M | 1.28M |
| ABC |
“This Week” | 2.38M | 660K |
| CBS | “Face the Nation” | 2.34M | 587K |
| FOX | “Fox News Sunday” | 1.06M | 477K |
| Univision | “Al Punto” | 471K | 247K |