Football leads the charge for most-watched TV of 2023
Written by ABC Audio. All rights reserved. on December 29, 2023
Variety has compiled its list of the year’s 100-most-watched telecasts, and as always, the NFL remains unchallenged for broadcast viewer supremacy: In fact, 19 of the top 20 in that 100 were football matchups, starting with the most-watched show of every year, the Super Bowl.
Fox’s Super Bowl LVII coverage of the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles was the TV champ, with 114,956,000 viewers, according to the trade.
The only non-football entry in the top 20 was the #15 occupant, March’s Oscars telecast on ABC, which drew 19,412,000 viewers; the Grammy Awards ranked at #36, with 13,376,000 viewers checking the show out on CBS the month prior.
Dropping down a little further — past even more NFL games, and two installments of 60 Minutes — one finds scripted content, with CBS’ Fire Country‘s twelfth episode, “Two Pink Lines.” That drew 12,225,000 viewers back in January, and a #43 ranking.
Tied in the 51st slot was the eighth episode of Yellowstone‘s fifth season, “A Knife and No Coin,” which attracted close to 11.5 million viewers. It was tied with The OT, a Fox Sports show about — what else — football.
Other scripted shows to make the list were installments of CBS’ FBI and NCIS shows, and its cop drama Blue Bloods, which is hanging up its badge in 2024.
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