Ratings: ‘Big Brother’-Led CBS Finishes a Distant 2nd to ABC’s Democratic Debate

Tony Maglio

No debate about it: ABC dominated broadcast television ratings last night with 2019’s third Democratic Debate. Univision, which simulcasted the TV event, finished in a tie for fifth place with NBC.

Due to the nature of live programming, the below fast-national numbers for ABC and Fox should be considered subject to significant adjustment. Fox aired baseball last night, as its “Thursday Night Football” rights have yet to kick in.

We should get final Nielsen numbers within a matter of hours. Those will include west-coast viewing and should boost both the debate and Fox’s baseball game.

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Last night’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers-Carolina Panthers game ran on the NFL Network.

ABC was first in ratings with a 1.9 rating/10 share in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic and in total viewers with an average of 11.2 million, according to preliminary numbers. That was all the three-hour debate.

CBS was second in ratings with a 0.7/4 and in viewers with 3.9 million. Between reruns, “Big Brother” at 9 p.m. landed a 1.1/6 and 4.6 million viewers.

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Fox was third in ratings with a 0.5/2 and in viewers with 2 million. Those numbers came courtesy of the Braves-Phillies MLB game in most markets. Fox did have the NFL game in the Charlotte market.

Telemundo was fourth in ratings with a 0.4/2 and fifth in viewers with 1.2 million.

NBC and Univision tied for fifth in ratings, both with a 0.3/2. NBC was fourth in total viewers with 1.7 million, airing all reruns; Univision was sixth in viewers with 1 million.

The CW was seventh in ratings with a 0.1/1 and in viewers with 628,000. “The Outpost” at 8 had a 0.2/1 and 725,000 viewers. “Two Sentence Horror Stories” at 9 got a 0.1/1 and 593,000 viewers. A repeat followed.

Read original story Ratings: ‘Big Brother’-Led CBS Finishes a Distant 2nd to ABC’s Democratic Debate At TheWrap