• by Wayne Friedman , 4 hours ago

As the 2025-26 broadcast prime-time season nears completion, NBC Television Network leads all networks with a Nielsen-measured average 5.3 million viewers for live programs plus seven days of time-shifted viewing (L7), per data from Nielsen Big Data + Panel results.

Nielsen Big Data + Panel started up officially as "currency" in January of this year, analyzing results from September 22, 2025 through May 17, 2026. The official end of the broadcast prime-time TV season is May 24.

After NBC, CBS was next with 4.4 million, followed by ABC at 4.2 million, Fox with 3.2 million and Univision at 3.2 million.

But the bigger differences come for NBC when looking at specific demographic results compared to other networks.

For example, the total for its average 18-49 viewers was double the amount for its nearest competitor, CBS. NBC has earned 1.1 million viewers compared to CBS’s viewer total of 531,000. Results were much the same for the 25-54 demographic, with NBC at 1.4 million; CBS, 721,000.

NBC’s strong viewing results are largely attributable to the sports-heavy February period, which featured “Super Bowl LX,”  the Winter Milan-Cortina Olympics, and the NBA All Star game.

The top "regular schedule" prime-time program was NBC’s "Sunday Night Football" with 20.6 million. The top 11 TV series were NFL programs.

The top non-sports entertainment program for CBS was“Tracker” with 10.6 million, while ABC's leader was “High Potential” at 8.1 million; for NBC, “Chicago Fire” with 7.2 million and for Fox, “Best Medicine" at 4.5 million.

Among cable TV networks for the same period, Fox News Channel held a dominant position in prime-time viewing with 2.52 million average viewers, followed by ESPN at 1.98 million; MS Now, 1.07 million, CNN, 718,000 and TBS, 680,000.

With its live sports programming, ESPN dominated all cable networks when looking at 18-49 and 25-54 viewers, with 721,000 and 809,000 viewers, respectively.