Return of college football boosts ABC in ratings

NEW YORK – The return of college football boosted ABC to a win in the weekly television ratings.

The network scored with Sunday night’s overtime thriller between Notre Dame and Texas, which was behind only “America’s Got Talent” among television’s most popular shows last week, and Saturday’s less thrilling game between USC and Alabama.

The games enabled ABC to narrowly beat NBC for bragging rights as the top network in the rerun-filled week before Labor Day, the Nielsen company said.

ABC averaged 5.2 million viewers in prime time to NBC’s 5.18 million. CBS had 4.3 million viewers, Fox had 2 million, Univision had 1.7 million, Telemundo had 1.4 million, ION Television had 1.3 million and the CW had 1.1 million.

Fox News Channel was the most popular cable network, averaging 2.14 million viewers in prime time. HGTV had 1.57 million, USA had 1.49 million, ESPN had 1.45 million and TNT had 1.37 million.

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8 million viewers. ABC’s “World News Tonight” was second with 7.9 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.6 million viewers.

For the week of Aug. 29-Sept. 4, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday), NBC, 12.28 million; College Football: Notre Dame at Texas, ABC, 10.95 million; “America’s Got Talent” (Wednesday, 9 p.m.), NBC, 10.5 million; College Football: USC at Alabama, ABC, 7.94 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 7.46 million; “Better Late Than Never,” NBC, 7.33 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 7.32 million; “American Ninja Warrior,” NBC, 7.01 million; “America’s Got Talent” (Wednesday, 8 p.m.), NBC, 6.46 million; “Big Brother” (Wednesday), NBC, 6.292 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox is owned by 21st Century Fox. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.

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Online:

http://www.nielsen.com