CBS’ Face the Nation with John Dickerson was the most-watched Sunday public affairs show for both Q4 2016 and for the complete 2016 Nielsen calendar year. FTN grew +9 percent in total viewers and +17 percent in the news demo from the 4th quarter of 2015.
NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, on the other hand, took top honors among viewers from the ad-friendly A25-54 demo. MTP grew +8 percent in total viewers and +24 percent in the news demo from Q4 of last year. Meet The Press appears to be a go-to program during election cycles. The program delivered its first yearly demo win since 2012, and its largest Q4 audience since 2008.
ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos took 3rd place in both categories, finishing behind Face The Nation in the news demo by an extremely slim margin. This Week grew +5 percent in total viewers, and held steady in the demo relative to Q4 of 2015.
Fox News Sunday on FOX grew +8 percent in total viewers and +13 percent in the news demo relative to Q4 2015.
Face the Nation is based on the first half-hour only, as the full contiguous hour aired in just 58.7 percent of the country.
The numbers for Q4 2016:
| Network | Program | Total Viewers | A25-54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBS | Face the Nation | 3.83 M | 946,000 |
| NBC | Meet the Press | 3.72 M | 1.13 M |
| ABC | This Week | 3.37 M | 945,000 |
| FOX | Fox News Sunday | 1.69 M | 531,000 |
| UNIV | Al Punto* | *na | *na |
*Al Punto ratings will be included when made available
On December 25th, Meet the Press, Face the Nation, and Fox News Sunday aired but each was re-titled due to the holiday. This Week was pre-empted this past Sunday due to ABC’s broadcast of the Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade.
None of these broadcasts are included in quarterly, season, or yearly averages.
MTP finished No. 1 in A25-54 viewers for the 13th straight week, and ranked No. 2 in total audience. The program won the influential D.C. market in total viewers yet again, and has not lost a Sunday in the market since March 22, 2015. With rebroadcasts on MSNBC, MTP delivered an additional 816,000 total viewers and 300,000 viewers A25-54.
Fox News Sunday delivered 1,538,000 in total viewers and 456,000 in A25-54 on FOX. The trio of cable replays, 2 p.m., 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., combined for 2.44 million viewers and 484,000 from the demo. Altogether, the 12/25 episode hauled 3.97 million viewers and 940,000 A25-54 viewers.
The numbers for December 25:
| Network | Program | Total Viewers | A25-54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBS | Face the Nation | 2.87 M | 680,000 |
| NBC | Meet the Press | 2.79 M | 761,000 |
| ABC | This Week | *na | *na |
| FOX | Fox News Sunday | 1.54 | 456,000 |
| UNIV | Al Punto* | *na | *na |