ESPN, boosted by its College Football Playoff National Championship game telecast, retained the top spot on the primetime ratings charts for the third straight week, according to Nielsen.

ESPN averaged 3.8 million viewers for the week of January 10 to January 16, easily beating Fox News Channel, which averaged 2.2 million viewers to finish in second place. The sports network was bolstered by the 22.2 million viewers who tuned into its January 10 Alabama-Georgia CFP title game, won by Georgia 38-18.

MSNBC finished third for the week with 1.2 million viewers, followed by HGTV’s 1 million viewers and Hallmark Channel’s 972,000 watchers. TLC (860,000 viewers), INSP (793,000), History (788,000), Discovery Channel (731,000) and Food Network (713,000) rounded out the top 10 most watched networks for the week. 

Fox News was the most watched network on a 24-hour basis for the second week in a row, averaging 1.4 million viewers. ESPN was next with 1.1 million viewers, followed by MSNBC (690,000 viewers), HGTV (614,000) and Hallmark Channel (553,000), said Nielsen. ■

ESPN kicked off 2022 on a ratings high note, ending Fox News Channel’s dominance of the weekly cable total day charts in winning both the primetime and total day races. 

The sports network, fueled by its New Year’s Eve college football playoffs telecasts, averaged 8.4 million primetime viewers to top all cable networks for the week of December 27 to January 2, according to Nielsen. For its Dec. 31 College Football Playoff semifinal games, ESPN averaged 17.2 million viewers for Georgia-Michigan and 16.6 million watchers for Cincinnati-Alabama, according to Nielsen.  

Fox News finished a distant second with 1.7 million viewers, followed by Paramount Network, which finished third with 1.5 million watchers, aided by the 9.3 million viewers the network generated for the January 2 finale of its original series Yellowstone.

Hallmark Channel finished fourth with 1.3 million viewers, followed by HGTV with 1 million viewers. TLC (932,000 viewers), TBS (851,000), MSNBC (774,000), INSP (753,000), and USA Network (751,000) rounded out the top 10 most-watched networks for the week.

ESPN also captured the top spot on the total day chart, averaging 3.1 million viewers to end Fox News’ winning streak at 45 weeks. Fox News finished second with 1.2 million viewers, followed by Hallmark Channel (783,000 viewers), Paramount Network (686,000) and HGTV (634,000), according to Nielsen. ■ 

ESPN scored an impressive primetime ratings win for the final week of 2016, blowing out the field with its coverage of college football playoff games.

ESPN averaged a whopping 8.6 million viewers during the week of Dec. 26 to Jan. 1, easily defeating second place Fox News’ average 1.8 million viewers for the week, according to Nielsen.

ESPN was paced by its coverage of the college football playoffs semi-final games, as well as its Dec. 26 Monday Night Football game between the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions. Overall, ESPN programs represented all top 10 most watched shows for the week, led by the Dec. 31 Washington Huskies/Alabama Crimson Tide game and the Ohio State Buckeyes/Clemson Tigers college football playoff games, which both drew 18.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

The games compared favorably to last year’s college football semi-final games on ESPN, which generated a combined 34.1 million viewers.

Hallmark completed its two month run of original holiday films by finishing third for the week with 1.7 million viewers, followed by USA’s 1.5 million watchers and HGTV’s 1.4 million viewers. Discovery Channel (1.3 million viewers), History (1.2 million), FX (1.1 million) and Investigation Discovery, Disney Channel and Freeform (all tied with 1.1 million) rounded out the top 10 most watched shows for the week.