NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� In what was otherwise a rough two weeks in Tokyo for NBC, television viewers responded 鈥� at least slightly 鈥� to the U.S. Olympic team's strong performance in the second half of the Games.
NBC's prime-time broadcast viewership for the second week was down 46% compared to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics of 2016, the Nielsen company said. In the first week, NBC was down 52% compared to Rio.
Last Tuesday, the 14.3 million people who watched the Games on NBC was actually up from the 14 million that had watched a week earlier from Tokyo. Generally, viewership goes down in the second week of the Olympics as viewers begin to tire of the nightly competition.
NBC said the Tokyo games averaged 15.6 million in prime-time viewership when the main network, cable outlets and streaming are added in. That's down 42% from the Olympics in Brazil.
The Tokyo streaming consumption of 5.5 billion minutes was up 22% over Rio, NBC said.
For the week, NBC averaged 10.6 million viewers in prime time. CBS had 2.3 million, Fox had 2.1 million, ABC had 1.9 million, Univision had 1.3 million, Ion Television had 1.1 million and Telemundo had 960,000.
Fox News Channel was the most-watched cable network in prime time, averaging 2.06 million viewers. The USA network had 1.16 million, MSNBC had 1.01 million, HGTV had 980,000 and TLC had 910,000.
ABC's 鈥淲orld News Tonight鈥� won the evening news ratings race with and average of 7.4 million viewers. NBC's 鈥淣ightly News鈥� had 6.9 million and the 鈥淐BS Evening News鈥� had 4.7 million.
For the week of Aug. 2-8, the 20 most-watched programs in prime time, their networks and viewerships:
1. 鈥淪ummer Olympics鈥� (Tuesday), NBC, 14.31 million.
2. 鈥淪ummer Olympics鈥� (Monday), NBC, 13.71 million.
3. 鈥淪ummer Olympics鈥� (Wednesday), NBC, 11.01 million.
4. 鈥淪ummer Olympics鈥� (Thursday), NBC, 10.99 million.
5. 鈥淪ummer Olympics鈥� (Friday), NBC, 9.85 million.
6. 鈥淪ummer Olympics Closing Ceremony," NBC, 8.82 million.
7. 鈥淪ummer Olympics鈥� (Saturday), NBC, 8.45 million.
8. NFL Exhibition Football: Dallas vs. Pittsburgh, Fox, 7.31 million.
9. 鈥�60 Minutes,鈥� CBS, 6.10 million.
10. 鈥淭okyo Gold,鈥� NBC, 5.84 million.
11. 鈥淏ig Brother鈥� (Sunday), CBS, 3.97 million.
12. 鈥淏ig Brother鈥� (Thursday), CBS, 3.73 million.
13. 鈥淭he Bachelorette,鈥� ABC, 3.66 million.
14. 鈥淏ig Brother鈥� (Wednesday), CBS, 3.64 million.
15. 鈥淔amily Game Fight,鈥� NBC, 3.39 million.
16. 鈥淣CIS,鈥� CBS, 3.16 million.
17. 鈥淭ucker Carlson Tonight" (Wednesday), Fox News, 3.07 million.
18. 鈥淭ucker Carlson Tonight鈥� (Monday), Fox News, 2.927 million.
19. 鈥淭ucker Carlson Tonight鈥� (Tuesday), Fox News, 2.923 million.
20. 鈥淭ucker Carlson Tonight鈥� (Thursday), Fox News, 2.8 million.
David Bauder, The Associated Press
