Primetime Ratings: ABC Crushes Competition With NBA Finals

ABC won the Monday ratings race by a mile, riding the final game of the NBA championship, Golden State Warriors over Cleveland Cavaliers, to a decisive 6.3 rating in adults 18-49, per Nielsen’s overnights, and a 23 share. The Jimmy Kimmel pre-game show did a 3.4 and NBA Countdown a 4.4, before Game 5 rated a 7.5.

Game 4 rated a 5.5.

NBC was a distant second at 1.2/4. The premiere of American Ninja Warrior scored a 1.4 across two hours—last summer’s premiere did a 1.7—before the premiere of Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge did a 0.9, well down from last summer’s 1.5 premiere.

Fox was at 0.8/3, with the premiere of So You Think You Can Dance at 0.9, down a tenth of a point from last summer’s debut, and the premiere of Superhuman at 0.7.

CBS did a 0.5/2 with repeats.

The CW scored a 0.3/1, with a Supergirl repeat before a new Whose Line Is It Anyway? at a flat 0.3.

Among Spanish-language broadcasters, Univision was at 0.5/2 and Telemundo at 0.4/1.

Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Playboy and New York magazine.