Fox struggling to find audience in new television season

NEW YORK, N.Y. – If Fox launches a comeback over the next couple of years, the network may very well look upon the week before Thanksgiving 2014 as its low point.

The struggling network finished fifth in prime-time viewership behind Spanish-language network Univision, which was boosted by coverage of the Latin Grammy Awards last week.

The highest-ranked Fox show in the Nielsen company’s weekly ratings was the “Batman” prequel, “Gotham,” the network’s biggest success of the fall. It ranked No. 46 last week with 6.5 million viewers, and made it into the Top 20 among viewers aged 18-to-49, the demographic Fox most cares about. “Bones” was second with 5.3 million viewers.

Ratings “sweeps” months aren’t nearly as important as they used to be, but November is still a month when broadcasters try to put their best foot forward with original programming.

The “American Music Awards” was seen by 11.6 million viewers on ABC, slightly down from last year. But it was by far the TV event generating the most Twitter activity, with 5.6 million tweets, Nielsen said. ABC’s “Scandal” was second with 443,000 tweets.

CBS won the week in prime time, averaging 10.6 million viewers. NBC had 8.5 million, and won among youthful viewers. ABC had 8.2 million, Univision had 3.3 million, Fox had 3.2 million, the CW had 1.9 million, Telemundo had 1.2 million and ION Television had 1.2 million.

ESPN was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 3.39 million viewers in prime time. Hallmark had 2.06 million, Fox News Channel had 2.01 million, the Disney Channel had 1.77 million and AMC had 1.67 million.

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9.8 million viewers. ABC’s “World News Tonight” was second with 9.2 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 7.6 million viewers.

For the week of Nov. 17-23, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Football: various teams, CBS, 26.36 million; NFL Football: Dallas at N.Y. Giants, NBC, 22.38 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 18.1 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 17.19 million; “NCIS: New Orleans,” CBS, 16.86 million; “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 14.67 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 14.61 million; “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 14.3 million; “The Walking Dead,” AMC, 13.33 million; NFL Football: Pittsburgh vs. Tennessee, ESPN, 12.77 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox is owned by 21st Century Fox. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.

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