• by Wayne Friedman , October 18, 2019

Thanks to strong performances from “Thursday Night Football” and “The Masked Singer,” Fox continues to lead broadcast networks in prime-time 18-49 viewers in the new TV season -- a rare uptick for a TV network versus the previous year.

After three weeks of the new season, Fox is at a Nielsen 1.9 rating/9 share, up 6% from a year ago through October 13. That's a combination of Nielsen-measured live-program plus seven days of time-shifted viewing and for the most recent period, live program-plus-same day time-shifted viewing.

NBC is next at a 1.7/8, down 20% from a year ago.

CBS and ABC each come in at 1.0/5 -- down 23% and 17%, respectively.

Univision and Telemundo are tied at a 0.4/2 -- flat and down 20%, respectively. The CW is even with a year ago at 0.2/1.

NBC is tops in total average viewers at 7.42 million, down 13%. CBS is close behind at 7.33 million, also 13% lower. Fox -- with another rare gain -- is at 6.58 million, 10% higher versus a year ago to date.

ABC is down 10% with 5.1 million viewers. Univision is flat at 1.33 million viewers, Telemundo is down 13% to 1.09 million and The CW is at 830,000 prime-time viewers, slipping 2%.