‘American Idol’ Up As Viewers Start Voting

Airing in the teeth of HBO’s 9 PM final Game of Thrones season opener,  broadcast networks had a remarkably steady Sunday.

Ratings for HBO’s final-season starter won’t be in until Tuesday, but CBS’ Game of Thrones nodding 60 Minutes (0.9 demo rating, 8.537 million viewers) was Sunday’s most watched broadcast show.

Meanwhile, all three of CBS’ Sunday dramas equaled series lows in the 18-49 demographics. That said, the network’s 8 PM God Friended Me season finale (0.6, 7.007M)  was the night’s most watched scripted broadcast show, besting even CBS’ 9 PM NCIS: Los Angeles (0.7, 6.762M), and 10 PM Madam Secretary (0.4, 4.978M). Madam Secretary did cop a timeslot win in overall audience by a margin of more than 1 million viewers.

After the previous week’s American Idol got bruised by CBS’ ACM Awards,  this week’s broadcast (1.3, 7.184M) jumped 30% in the demo and 17% in total viewers as viewer voting got underway. Idol ranked No. 1 on the night in the demo. ABC topped every hour of primetime in the metric, including 7 PM’s repeat America’s Funniest Home Video (0.9, 5.223M) which tied CBS’ newsmag and Shark Tank’s (0.8, 3.953M) demo win at 10 PM.

NBC’s just renewed Good Girls (0.6, 2.423M) produced previous week numbers. Ditto its lead-in, NBC’s World of Dance (0.7, 3.267M).

Fox and CW stuck to repeats on Sunday.

ABC (1.1, 5.886M) topped primetime in the demo, besting CBS (0.6, 6.821M) and NBC (0.6, 2.977M) by 5/10ths. CBS won the night in total viewers. Fox (0.5, 1.290M) and CW (0.1, 361K) followed.