Kent Gibbons and Michael Malone talk about fall schedules, which are slowly unfurling, Showtime's The Comey Rule, HBO's Agents of Chaos, and more.

This is a quick snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of Aug. 24-30, revealing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Inscape, and the top shows and networks by TV ad impressions with insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks 

Via Inscape.tv, the TV data company with insights from a panel of more than 15 million smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

Looking at shows, of all the minutes watched by smart TVs that Inscape measured in all dayparts, 1.94% of the time was spent on NBA games on TNT, putting it in first place for the second week in a row. Good Morning America and America’s Newsroom take second and third place, respectively, while CNN’s America's Choice 2020: Republican National Convention was in fourth place with 0.78% share duration and Weather Channel’s coverage of Hurricane Laura took fifth (0.75%).

On the network side of things, of all minutes watched last week, 7.57% of the time was spent on Fox News, 6.05% was spent on NBC and 5.48% on ABC. Fox, TNT and HGTV all inched up the ranking compared to the previous week, while The Weather Channel sped into the top 15, up from No. 48 last week.

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

Once again, NBA basketball leads TV ad impressions by a wide margin, with nearly 3.3 billion impressions last week. Second place goes to coverage of Hurricane Laura with 1.6 billion impressions, followed by PGA Tour Golf (1 billion) and America’s Newsroom (971.2 million). Two programs dedicated to coverage of the 2020 Republican National Convention also made the top 25 ranking: MSNBC’s Decision 2020: Republican National Convention and CNN’s America's Choice 2020: Republican National Convention.

Once again, Fox News takes first place with over 6.7 billion TV ad impressions, 1 billion more than the previous few weeks. NBC was in second place with 4.2 billion impressions, followed by CNN (3.4 billion), Weather Channel (3.2 billion) and CBS (2.9 billion). Multiple sports-centric networks also made the top 25, including NBC Sports (1 billion), Golf (709.7 million), Fox Sports 1 (297 million) and MLB Network (272.8 million).

Kent Gibbons and Michael Malone talk about Fargo's return to the FX Schedule; Brian Stelter's book, which looks at President Trump and Fox News; and convention coverage.

The opening night of the Republican National Convention drew 17.01 million viewers Monday, down 26% from 23.01 million four years ago, according to Nielsen.

The first night of last week’s Democratic National Convention attracted 19.7 million viewers.

The RNC drew a 10.7 household rating on the 11 networks with live coverage from 10 p.m. ET through 11 p.m. ET. That was down from a 12.7 rating in 2016.

There were 1.01 million 18- to 34-year-olds tuned in--down from 1.9 million a year ago, and 12.05 million people 55 years and up, down from 14.2 million.

During the 10 p.m. hour, Fox News had 7.1 million total viewers, topping all networks. CNN had over 2 million viewers, ABC had almost 2 million, NBC had 1.7 million, MSNBC had 1.6 million and CBS had 1.5 million 

Among adults 25-54, the demographic preferred by news advertisers, Fox News had 1.6 million, CNN had 606,000, NBC had 541,000, ABC had 521,000, CBS had 424, 000 and MSNBC had 308,000.

President Donald Trump has canceled the in-person part of Republican National Convention, which had been scheduled for Jacksonville, Florida, next month. 

Media outlets had already arranged for their technical coverage coordination with the FCC. 

He made the announcement at his renewed daily coronavirus briefing Thursday (July 23). 

The president said there would be some kind of online convention and "telerallies," but that they needed to set an example of not getting everyone together in a large venue.  

He said he would still do a convention speech, "in some form," but that it was just not the time for "a big, crowded, convention." 

The convention had been moved from Charlotte, N.C., to Florida in part because of COVID-19-related restrictions there, but Florida's cases have flared up and the President said he recognized that and "had to protect the American people." 

Trump said he also did not want to give the media a reason to criticize him if the convention went ahead, though he said that was not the reason for canceling the in-person convention.  

WASHINGTON — Add President Donald Trump’s re-election team to the growing list of critics of major edge providers, a list that includes cable operators and more than a few Democratic legislators.

Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and the Republican National Committee are “demanding” that major social media platforms promise not to discriminate against conservative outlets online. That word came in a letter to the CEOs of Facebook and Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, respectively, and Trump supporters were asked to sign as well.

“As the president’s campaign manager, I’ve written a letter demanding that the Silicon Valley social media elites stop their rampant liberal bias and stop trying to censor your voice,” Parscale said in an email from both the Trump campaign and the RNC, saying those “coastal elites” were trying to “silence and attack” Trump supporters. The letter sought information on what Facebook and Twitter were doing to prevent suppression of conservative speech.

Edge providers have been under scrutiny in Washington over a host of issues, including sex trafficking, breaches, insufficient privacy protections, Russian election meddling and a perceived liberal bias — a concern that Zuckerberg has told Congress is understandable.

Related: Reps. Square Off Over Online Censorship

RNC chair Ronna McDaniel told Fox News Channel that she and Parscale wanted to “get out ahead of” the issue of conservative censorship on social media, talk to Facebook and Twitter and ask them for transparency and to ensure everyone has a voice, particularly in advance of the midterm elections.

Parscale referenced the blocking of social media personalities Diamond and Silk, African-American Trump supporters who say Facebook was censoring their content because of their political speech. They testified at an April Hill hearing on perceived political bias. Zuckerberg said content reviewers erred and had reached out to the pair.

Parscale believes conservative voices not getting their message out is a “big problem.” The letter says that while they acknowledged Facebook and Twitter operate “in liberal corporate cultures,” the “rampant political bias” was “inappropriate.”

Parscale and the RNC are also worried about a Facebook voter registration effort. “We ask for transparency over how Facebook determines who sees these advertisements in their news feeds,” they wrote. “This is to make sure this new feature does not become essentially an in-kind contribution to liberal candidates.”

Even as FCC nominees were pledging to speak out against attacks on journalists, President Donald Trump was continuing his verbal assault on the media, going so far as to offer a new "Fight Fake News" bumper sticker in exchange for a $1 donation to his joint (with the RNC) fundraising committee.

FCC Nominees Pledge to Speak Out Against Media Attacks

In an e-mail signed by the president and circulated Wednesday (July 19), Trump let fly with now familiar broad-brush attacks:

"Friend,

"I’ve said it before and I will say it again: the Fake News Media is the real opposition.

"Rather than working to fix the problems this nation is facing, the Fake News Media and the Left are hand-in-hand peddling supposed 'news' based on anonymous sources and an unbelievable lack of journalistic integrity.

"In fact, they’re so focused on bringing down the success of my administration -- that they’re forgetting about you, the American people.

"It is nothing but a 24/7 barrage of hit jobs, fake stories, and absolute disdain for everything we stand for as a movement.

"But Friend, I made a promise to stay focused on the American people.

"And I will not forget about you or that promise.

"This is a fight we can’t afford to lose. The future of our great country hangs in the balance. Stand with me in our fight against the FAKE NEWS with a contribution of $1 or more today."

Elsewhere in Washington, Democratic senators were calling on Republican leadership to hold a hearing on the state of the news media and attacks on journalists by the administration and others.

President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee have turned their attacks on the media into a fundraising tool.

"The American people deserve better than an obsessed and bias [sic] media, they deserve the truth," reads the latest e-mail soliciting donations to Trump Make America Great Again Committee, in a statement attributed to the president. The statement is followed by a request to "contribute $1 immediately," per a copy of the email obtained by Multichannel News.

The group is a "joint fundraising committee authorized by and composed of Donald J. Trump for President Inc., and the Republican National Committee."

Related: President Launches Leak Investigation

The President suggests the public will get that truth only by cutting through the noise of that media coverage and contributing directly to "draining the swamp."

"They’re out in full force against us, Friend," the president writes, "and they’re not going to stop."

Trump has incessantly criticized and marginalized media reports that reflect him in a less-than-flattering light or suggest failures or losses, and the e-mail cites stories, or at least headlines, about the degree to which he is getting negative coverage.

President Donald Trump may be trying to finesse his media attacks a bit, or maybe not.

In a tweet Monday morning (April 17), Trump's latest attack was: "The Fake Media (not Real Media) has gotten even worse since the election. Every story is badly slanted. We have to hold them to the truth!"

He did not say what the "real media" was, but the tweet at least suggested he might see a difference, though it could have been a carve-out for Fox & Friends, which he has consistently praised in recent weeks while hammering other news shows.

Over the weekend, Trump reminded his Twitter followers that he had won the election, that the election was over, and that the previous eight years of foreign policy had been a total failure, of which he said, "So true."

But not long after the tweet suggesting there was at least a "real news" against which to judge the fake, Trump and the Republican National Committee had taken out their broad brush once again.

In an effort to raise money for a special election Tuesday in Georgia in which the Republicans face a tough challenge, "Team Trump" sent out an e-mail Monday asking for money on the argument that it was needed to "cut through the noise of the fake news media."

Trump also tweeted that the Democrat in the Georgia race "wants to protect criminals." The seat was once held by former Speaker of the House and Trump advisor Newt Gingrich.

Not surprisingly, the most-tweeted-about TV show Thursday night was the Republican National Convention coverage -- on various networks -- which drew 2,008,000 tweets from 470,000 unique authors, according to Nielsen Social's Daily Top Five.

Those tweets spiked at 10:48, during the acceptance speech of GOP nominee Donald Trump, when he promised to "fix the system," said Nielsen.

Rounding out the list were CBS's Big Brother at No. 2 with 52,000 tweets from 15,000 uniques; CBS' The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (Trump's speech was the lead-in and Jon Stewart made a special appearance, which drew its own tweetstorm later), with 23,000 tweets from 16,000 uniques; Comedy Central's At Midnight with Chris Hardwick with 11,000 from 4,000 uniques; and Fox's season finale of Bones with 10,000 and 3,000 uniques.

A portion of the Bones episode was reportedly pre-empted on the West Coast, so that number could have been affected by that, either prompting more tweets from unhappy fans or fewer, given there was less show to comment on on the West Coast.

Tweets about the shows are captured from three hours before through three hours after each initial broadcast. Unique authors are defined as having a unique Twitter account that sent "at least one tweet ascribed to a specific TV episode."