CBS’ Face the Nation with John Dickerson was the top-rated Sunday public affairs program among total viewers for both the fourth quarter of 2015 and for Dec. 27. It’s Face the Nation’s best Q4 since the advent of people meters in 1987. However, ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos finished atop the key A25-54 demo for both the week and Q4.
This Week’s is up +12 percent in viewers and +12 percent in the demo compared to Q4 last year. Face the Nation is up +4 percent in viewers but down -14 percent in the key demo. NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd finished second in both viewers and the demo for Q4, but finished third in both categories on Dec. 27. MTP didn’t win any specific categories, but did show the most growth since Q4 last season with a +27 percent increase in viewers and +13 percent in the demo.
Fox News Sunday combined with cable replays for 3.17 million viewers on Dec 27. Replays on FNC averaged a combined 1.64 million total viewers and 260,000 in the demo with Doug McKelway filling in for Chris Wallace. For the quarter, FNS is up +19 percent in viewers and +14 percent in the demo.
Face the Nation is based on the first half-hour only, as the full contiguous hour aired in just 57.4 percent of the country.
The numbers for Q2 2015:
| Network | Program | Total Viewers | A25-54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBS | Face the Nation | 3.52 M | 812,000 |
| NBC | Meet the Press | 3.44 M | 909,000 |
| ABC | This Week | 3.20 M | 941,000 |
| FOX | Fox News Sunday | 1.56 M | 472,000 |
| UNIV | Al Punto* |
The numbers for December 27:
| Network | Program | Total Viewers | A25-54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBS | Face the Nation | 3.85 M | 943,000 |
| NBC | Meet the Press | 3.31 M | 855,000 |
| ABC | This Week | 3.47 M | 1.06 M |
| FOX | Fox News Sunday | 1.52 M | 538,000 |
| UNIV | Al Punto* |
*Al Punto numbers will be added as they become available