Black TV Ratings for Week of October 21 – 27
(Target Market News)–After going head-to-head for the past three weeks, ABC’s “Scandal” has decisively beaten NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” for the week’s No.1 show in Black households. In what has been described as a battle of Black male and female TV viewers, the politically-based drama pulled a million more watchers than the game between Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings.
The other bad news for NBC this past week was word that it had decided to cancel the reincarnated version of the police drama, “Ironside,” starring Blair Underwood. The show averaged only about a million black viewers weekly since its debut.
“Scandal” pushed ABC to winner of the week’s most watched network title among the Top 25. It had 10.5 million viewers across seven of its shows. CBS followed in second with nine million for seven shows, while NBC fell to third posting 8.8 million also for seven shows.
Nielsen said that the total number of viewers for the Top 25 shows in black households was down two percent to 35.8 million.
Top 25 Broadcast Shows in Black Households
Rank | Program | Network | % AA Homes | % of AA P2+ | No. of Viewers (000)
| 1 | SCANDAL | ABC | 18.0 | 9.0 | 3,460 |
| 2 | NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL | NBC | 11.9 | 6.2 | 2,406 |
| 3 | THE OT | FOX | 11.6 | 5.9 | 2,268 |
| 4 | PERSON OF INTEREST | CBS | 9.8 | 4.8 | 1,840 |
| 5 | FOX WORLD SERIES GM4-PRE | FOX | 9.0 | 4.3 | 1,642 |
| 6 | GREY’S ANATOMY | ABC | 8.8 | 4.1 | 1,599 |
| 7 | SUNDAY NIGHT NFL PRE-KICK | NBC | 8.4 | 4.4 | 1,708 |
| 8 | NCIS: LOS ANGELES | CBS | 7.8 | 3.8 | 1,456 |
| 9 | CRIMINAL MINDS | CBS | 7.2 | 3.7 | 1,433 |
| 10 | DANCING WITH THE STARS | ABC | 7.0 | 3.4 | 1,324 |
| 11 | FOOTBALL NT AMERICA PT 3 | NBC | 7.0 | 3.9 | 1,506 |
| 12 | THE VOICE-TUE | NBC | 6.9 | 3.5 | 1,352 |
| 13 | THE VOICE | NBC | 6.9 | 3.4 | 1,311 |
| 14 | MARVEL AGENTS S.H.I.E.L.D | ABC | 6.6 | 3.5 | 1,355 |
| 15 | FOX WORLD SERIES GAME 4 | FOX | 6.4 | 3.0 | 1,151 |
| 16 | NCIS | CBS | 6.3 | 3.2 | 1,232 |
| 17 | BLUE BLOODS | CBS | 5.9 | 2.7 | 1,027 |
| 18 | CSI | CBS | 5.8 | 2.9 | 1,111 |
| 19 | IRONSIDE | NBC | 5.6 | 2.7 | 1,034 |
| 20 | BLACKLIST | NBC | 5.4 | 2.6 | 1,010 |
| 21 | CASTLE | ABC | 5.1 | 2.5 | 953 |
| 22 | HAWAII FIVE-0 | CBS | 5.1 | 2.4 | 929 |
| 23 | LAW AND ORDER:SVU | NBC | 5.1 | 2.5 | 960 |
| 24 | 20/20-FRI | ABC | 5.0 | 2.4 | 928 |
| 25 | SHARK TANK | ABC | 4.9 | 2.3 | 889 |
Source: The Nielsen Co. Number of viewers ages 2+ shown in thousands (1,000 = 1 million). Rankings are based on share of black households. Representing more than 13.45 million television households in the U.S., the African-American television audience is the largest minority segment in Nielsen”s measurement samples. All times eastern.