NEW YORK (AP) - Given how NBC's summer is going, the network might want to make sure that everyone it puts on the air in prime time has a good singing voice.
The nation's five most-watched television programs last week were all on NBC, and all were versions of "America's Got Talent" or "The Voice," the Nielsen Co. said Tuesday. That gave NBC the week's crown in the competition for top-rated network.
Meanwhile, Univision's telecast of the Copa Oro soccer tournament game between the United States and Mexico had nearly 8 million viewers, or more than anything on ABC or Fox last week. Nielsen was checking to see whether this was the first time a Spanish-language broadcast made the company's top 10 list.
NBC aired versions of "America's Got Talent" in prime time on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday - two hours each on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Judging by their ratings on other days, it was a wise choice: The new Thursday night series "Love Bites" was seen by a minuscule 2 million viewers. A new "Friday Night Lights" the next night had 2.8 million viewers.
HBO's season premiere of "True Blood" on Sunday had 5.4 million viewers, tying for the series high. Another million viewers watched when the show was rerun later that night, Nielsen said.
For the week, NBC averaged 6.2 million viewers in prime time (3.7 rating, 7 share). CBS had 5.9 million viewers (3.8, 7), ABC had 4.7 million (2.9, 5), Fox had 3.8 million (2.3, 4), ION Television had 1.1 million (0.7, 1) and the CW had 800,000 (0.5, 1).
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision had a prime-time average of 4.1 million (2.0 rating, 4 share). Telemundo had 930,000 viewers (0.5, 1), TeleFutura had 540,000 (0.3, 1), Azteca had 190,000 and Estrella had 170,000 (both 0.1, 0).
NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.9 million viewers (5.2, 11). ABC's "World News" was second with 7.2 million (4.8, 10) and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.5 million viewers (3.7, 8).
A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.7 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of June 20-26, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "America's Got Talent" (Wednesday, 9:16 p.m.), NBC, 13.5 million; "America's Got Talent" (Tuesday, 8 p.m.), NBC, 12.3 million; "The Voice," NBC, 12.05 million; "America's Got Talent" (Wednesday, 10:16 p.m.), NBC, 10.75 million; "The Voice Results Show," NBC, 10 million; "NCIS," CBS, 9.33 million; "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 8.84 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 8.02 million; Copa Oro 2011 Soccer: U.S. vs Mexico, Univision, 7.98 million; "The Bachelorette," ABC, 7.76 million.
---
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 and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by General Electric Co. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.
---
Online: