The last day of August and the start of the Labor Day weekend produced the kind of calm in the ratings wars that you might expect.
Friday night’s primetime ratings saw a five-way tie for the no. 1 spot in ratings/share on the night for adults 18-49. The big five included NBC’s American Ninja Warrior rerun and Dateline, ABC’s What Would You Do? and 20/20 repeats, and CBS’ TKO: Total Knock Out, all of them at 0.5/2.
Dateline had the biggest total audience of the night with 3.04 million, and NBC was the leading network on the evening with 0.5/2 ratings share and 2.73 million in total audience.
Elsewhere, Friday night’s US Open telecast on ESPN – Serena Williams defeating older sister Venus 6-1 6-2 in dominating fashion – earned a 1.8 overnight rating for the match and 1.5 for the two-hour telecast in the metered markets, according to Nielsen. That is the highest rating in the first three rounds at the US Open that ESPN/ESPN2 has ever earned in history, 123 telecasts starting in 2009.
The two-hour telecast (7:15 – 9:15 p.m. ET) was up 114% — more than double – last year’s equivalent telecast on ESPN2 (0.7). The match (8-9:15 p.m.) peaked at 1.9 from 8:45 – 9 p.m.
Must Read Stories
Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy.