Sunday Show Ratings: Q2 ’18 & July 1

If it’s Sunday, it means Meet the Press is winning in the ratings. Moderated by Chuck Todd, the NBC Sunday public affairs show won the 2nd quarter of 2018 across the board, per Nielsen data. That’s now back-to-back across-the-board quarterly wins for the program, and in addition to being No. 1 for the quarter in total viewers, the program achieved its 10th consecutive quarterly win among adults from the ad-friendly A25-54 demo.

Though it lost audience relative to Q2 2017, it managed to improved its advantages from last year over CBS by +349,000 total viewers and ABC by +15,000 total viewers. That represents its best advantages over CBS in 7 years and over ABC in 3 years; which basically means the year-over-year losses for MTP weren’t as severe as what those of its competitors.

CBS’ Face the Nation moderated by Margaret Brennan continues to rank No. 2 in total viewers, and No. 3 in the key adults 25-54 demo.

ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos was No. 3 in total viewers, and No. 2 in the key demo. It defeated Face the Nation by its largest 2nd quarter advantage in A25-54 (+104,000) in 18 years, since Q2 2000.  In fact, Q2 ’18 represented This Week’s 4th consecutive year that it beat FTN during a 2nd quarter among adults 25-54, and the 9th straight quarter overall—since 2Q15 and 2Q16, respectively.

Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace finished No. 4 across the board.

Q2 2018:

MTP was the most-watched Sunday show across the board for the fourth straight week. Delivering an average of 2.850 million total viewers and 718,000 A25-54 demo viewers, MTP beat ABC’s This Week by double-digits across the board: +22 percent (+506,000) more total viewers and +36 percent (+189,000) more demo viewers.

The July 1 broadcast featured exclusive interviews with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the new Democratic nominee for New York’s 14th congressional district.

CBS’s Face the Nation, moderated by Margaret Brennan, was pre-empted.

Fox News Sunday, hosted by Chris Wallace, was pre-empted in most markets or run out of rotation due to World Cup Soccer. But for those markets that did air FNS on its Fox station, the program posted 775,000 total viewers and 301,000 demo viewers. The trio of cable replays on FNC delivered 2.7 million total viewers and 534,000 demo viewers. Altogether, that’s 3.49 million total viewers and 835,000 demo viewers on July 1.

July 1, 2018:

Source: Nielsen, NTI (Total Viewers and Adults 25-54); Most Current – 2Q18: 4/2–7/1/18, – 2Q17: 3/27–6/25/17 and 1Q18: 1/1/17–4/1/18. Averages based on regular telecasts.