TV Ratings story for the week of June 1 — 7 Wed., June 10, 2020

The second full week of television’s summer season was much like the first with “America’s Got Talent” and “60 Minutes” the only programs to average more than 7 million viewers.

“America’s Got Talent” averaged 8.789 million viewers, 11.2% less than the 9.899-million average for its season premiere a week earlier, according to live-plus-same-day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen.

An “America’s Got Talent” episode has been the week’s most-watched entertainment program every week an original episode has aired since its 2016 season premiere.

“60 Minutes” was second, averaging 7.763 million viewers, slightly topping the 7.679 million average the previous week.

As in the previous week, all three segments of the newsmagazine series were new. They were an interview with Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and reports on the challenges San Antonio is facing as it eases restrictions imposed to combat the spread of the coronavirus and how an Oklahoma law punishing people deemed guilty of failing to stop the child abuse has resulted in more than a dozen women being more severely punished than the men who did the abusing.

A rerun of a double-length segment on Italian composer and pianist Francesco Lotoro’s efforts to recover, perform and in some cases finishing pieces of music composed in captivity by Jewish prisoners in Nazi concentration camps that aired after “60 Minutes” under the “60 Minutes Presents” title was ninth for the week, averaging 5.227 million viewers.

By comparison, the two highest-rated programs for the second week of the 2019 summer season were ABC’s coverage of the NBA Finals. Games 3 and 4 of the series between the Raptors and the Warriors averaged 13.348 million and 12.794 million viewers, respectively.

There were two other programs to average more than 6 million viewers, one more than the previous week. A rerun of the CBS action drama “NCIS” was third for the week, averaging 6.56 million viewers, while the season finale of ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” was fourth, averaging 6.516 million viewers.

CBS had four of the week’s top 10 programs to be the most-watched network for the 17th consecutive week and 22nd time in the 37-week-old 2019-20 prime-time television season, averaging 3.95 million viewers for its programming between June 1 and Sunday.

ABC was second, averaging 3.31 million viewers. NBC was third, averaging 3.16 million viewers.

Fox was fourth among the broadcast networks for the 17th time in 18 weeks, averaging 1.49 million viewers for its 15 hours of programming. Its highest rating was for a 10-minute post-race show after its afternoon coverage of Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 NASCAR Cup Series auto race, which averaged 2.916 million viewers, 38th among broadcast programs.

Fox’s top-rated entertainment program was a rerun of the procedural drama “9-1-1,” which averaged 2.516 million viewers, 49th among broadcast programs. The overall ranks for both programs were not available.

Fox News Channel was first among cable networks for the 20th consecutive week, averaging 3.858 million viewers. It had each of the six highest-rated prime-time cable programs, topped by the June 1 edition of the political talk show “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” which aired live as unrest and protests was occurring in much of the nation after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and averaged 5.955 million viewers, fifth overall.

CNN averaged 2.455 million viewers to finish second for the second consecutive week after finishing third six of the previous seven weeks. MSNBC averaged 2.212 million viewers to finish third for the second consecutive week after finishing second 11 of the previous 14 weeks.