Key Points
- Nielsen data showed lower network TV viewing in mid-December, with average audiences for top broadcast programs falling week over week.
- NFL games again led ratings, though viewership declined from the prior week across CBS, Fox and NBC matchups.
- Fox News dominated cable news, while multicast networks like Ion and MeTV posted steady performance.
Fewer Americans watched the top television programs on broadcast and cable networks during the second week of December, according to fresh data shared by Nielsen with The Desk on Wednesday.
Sports continued to be a major draw to broadcast and cable networks: CBS dominated the week with its late-window National Football League (NFL) games on Sunday attracting 24.5 million viewers and capturing a 7.6 share.
Those figures were slightly lower than what Fox grabbed with its late-window NFL games the prior week, which drew nearly 28 million viewers with an 8.7 share.
NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” continued to be the most-watched single TV event of the week, with its match-up between the Minnesota Vikings and Dalls Cowboys bringing in 19.61 million viewers. But that number, too, was lower than what the network brought in the prior week with its game between the Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs, which raked in nearly 21.8 million viewers.
On broadcast TV, the top 10 programs — almost all of which were live football games or related programming — attracted an average audience of nearly 14 million viewers during Nielsen’s most-recent measurement week between December 8 and December 14. The average audience during the prior measurement week was 16.9 million viewers, per Nielsen data reviewed by The Desk.
Things weren’t much better on the cable side, with the most watched program — ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Los Angeles Chargers — drawing fewer than 10 million viewers to the sports network. (Overall viewership of the game was less than 20 million when taking into account ABC’s simulcast.)
Fox News continued to dominate with its slate of evening and prime-time shows, with the roundtable discussion program “The Five” clearing the top 10 list with every episode broadcast that week. Each episode cleared more than 3 million viewers, with the top-rated program on December 8 attracting 3.57 million viewers and capturing a 1.1 share.
NBC was the most-watched network of the week, with an average audience of 4.72 million viewers and a 1.5 share. CBS was not too far behind with nearly 4.1 million viewers and a 1.3 share, while ABC was in third place with 3.95 million viewers and a 1.2 share.
MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) continued to see strong interest in its political-oriented news and commentary shows following last month’s relaunch. An interview by Jacob Soboroff with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on “Deadline: White House” attracted more than 1.3 million viewers and was one of the network’s most-watched episodes during the measurement week.
Overall, MS NOW attracted 975,000 viewers during the week, ranking eighth among all broadcast and cable networks and placing just behind Fox News, which ranked sixth with 1.64 million viewers.
When excluding broadcast networks, MS NOW was the third most-watched channel on cable during the week, behind ESPN and Fox News. CNN ranked fifth among cable networks with an average audience of 499,000, while Newsmax attracted an average audience of just over 110,000 viewers. NewsNation rounded out the group of cable news channels with an average audience of 105,000 viewers.
On the multicast side, the E. W. Scripps Company’s Ion had seven of the top 200 programs watched during the week thanks to repeats of “NCIS,” “Blue Bloods” and “FBI.” Those re-runs helped Ion rank seventh among broadcast networks, and fifth with Spanish-language networks factored out. Ion ended the week as the 10th most-watched network overall, according to Nielsen ratings.
Weigel-owned MeTV saw another strong week with its rebroadcasts of “M*A*S*H” at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, attracting an average audience of 814,000 viewers during the hour-long block. The 7:30 p.m. ET episode was the stronger of the two, drawing 835,000 viewers.
Sinclair’s three legacy multicast networks — Comet, Charge and Roar — grabbed an average audience of 242,000 viewers, according to Nielsen data, with Charge ending the week as the strongest of the networks. The networks — which Sinclair refers to internally as “The Stack” — saw 1.2 percent higher viewership during Nielsen’s most-recent measurement week compared to the first week of December.
Top-Rated Broadcast TV Programs
Rank
Network
Show
P2+ Viewers
P2+ Share
1
NFL on CBS (4:25 p.m. games)
24.5 million
7.6
2
Sunday Night Football: MIN/DAL
19.61 million
6.1
3
NFL on Fox (4:25 p.m. games)
19.41 million
6.0
4
NFL on CBS (1:05 p.m. games)
18.93 million
5.9
5
Monday Night Football: PHI/LAC
10.71 million
3.3
6
Football Night in America (pt.3)
10.18 million
3.2
7
60 Minutes
10.16 million
3.2
8
NFL on Fox (1:05 p.m. games)
9.46 million
2.9
9
The OT
8.53 million
2.7
10
Sunday Night Football: post-game
8.46 million
2.6
Source: Nielsen Big Data + Panel (December 8-14, 2025), viewership data is rounded
Top-Rated Cable TV Programs
Rank
Network
Show
P2+ Viewers
P2+ Share
1
Monday Night Football: PHI/LAC
9.08 million
2.8
2
Monday Night Football: kickoff
5.15 million
1.6
3
The Five (Dec. 8)
3.57 million
1.1
4
The Five (Dec. 11)
3.43 million
1.1
5
The Five (Dec. 10)
3.41 million
1.1
6
Monday Night Football: post-game
3.34 million
1.0
7
The Five (Dec. 9)
3.33 million
1.0
8
The Five (Dec. 12)
3.01 million
0.9
9
Jesse Watters Primetime (Dec. 8)
2.73 million
0.9
10
Jesse Watters Primetime (Dec. 11)
2.65 million
0.8
Source: Nielsen Big Data + Panel (December 8-14, 2025), viewership data is rounded
Top TV Networks, Prime-Time (Broadcast/Cable)
Rank
Network
P2+ Viewers
P2+ Share
1
4.72 million
1.5
2
4.09 million
1.3
3
3.95 million
1.2
4
2.43 million
0.8
5
2 million
0.6
6
1.64 million
0.5
7
1.16 million
0.4
8
975,000
0.3
9
915,000
0.3
10
