The start of the World Series and the annual “Treehouse of Horror” episode of The Simpsons gave Fox a bigger presence than usual in Nielsen’s seven-day ratings.
CBS’ NCIS, meanwhile, became the first entertainment show of the 2022-23 season to break the 10 million-viewer mark with a week of delayed viewing. Only sports telecasts and a few post-NFL episodes of 60 Minutes had done so in the previous five weeks.
Fox had five of the top nine primetime network broadcasts among adults 18-49 for Oct. 24-30, with the first two World Series Games (2.9 and 2.4 ratings), The Simpsons (1.5), 911 (1.1) and The Masked Singer (1.0). The Simpsons tied its season high in the key ad demographic and set a new season best in total viewers (4.4 million).
The World Series games drew 11.57 million and 10.87 million viewers to finish second and third behind NBC’s Sunday Night Football (19.74 million viewers), which was the clear No. 1 for the week. It also led the 18-49 demo with a 5.4 rating. As usual, all three sports telecasts got nearly all their audience the night they aired.
NCIS set a season high in viewers for the second straight week, coming in at 10.18 million viewers after seven days. The long-running drama has the three biggest seven-day audiences of the season among entertainment programming on the networks. It was one of three shows to add at least 3 million viewers over seven days, growing by 3.21 million poeople. Fellow CBS veteran Blue Bloods (+3.66 million, finishing with 9.35 million) and ABC’s The Rookie (+3.01 million for a season high 6.53 million total) are the others.
CBS’ FBI franchise and NBC’s Chicago shows, which are usual top 10 entrants on the delayed viewing charts, were in repeats for the week and therefore aren’t included in seven-day rankings.
Seven-day Nielsen ratings totals do not include streaming, which makes up a sizable portion of the total audience for entertainment programming. The top 10 broadcast shows (including ties) in the seven-day ratings for Oct. 24-30 are below.
Total Viewers
| Show | Network | Live +7 viewers (000s) | Change from live + SD |
% change from live + SD |
| Sunday Night Football | NBC | 19,739 | 120 | 1% |
| World Series Game 1 | Fox | 11,568 | 93 | 1% |
| World Series Game 2 | Fox | 10,872 | 82 | 1% |
| NCIS | CBS | 10,178 | 3,205 | 46% |
| Ghosts | CBS | 9,384 | 2,602 | 38% |
| Blue Bloods | CBS | 9,345 | 3,663 | 64% |
| Young Sheldon | CBS | 9,197 | 2,132 | 30% |
| 60 Minutes | CBS | 8,492 | 451 | 6% |
| Fire Country | CBS | 7,894 | 2,591 | 49% |
| 911 | Fox | 7,487 | 2,340 | 45% |
Adults 18-49
| Show | Network | Live +7 18-49 rating |
Change from live + SD |
% change from live + SD |
| Sunday Night Football | NBC | 5.4 | even | 0% |
| World Series Game 1 | Fox | 2.9 | even | 0% |
| World Series Game 2 | Fox | 2.4 | even | 0% |
| The Simpsons | Fox | 1.5 | 0.2 | 15% |
| Saturday Night College Football | ABC | 1.3 | even | 0% |
| 911 | Fox | 1.1 | 0.4 | 57% |
| Law & Order: SVU | NBC | 1.0 | 0.4 | 67% |
| The Masked Singer | Fox | 1.0 | 0.3 | 43% |
| Survivor | CBS | 1.0 | 0.2 | 25% |
| Grey’s Anatomy | ABC | 0.9 | 0.4 | 80% |
| Matthew Perry: Diane Sawyer Interview | ABC | 0.9 | 0.4 | 80% |
| Ghosts | CBS | 0.9 | 0.4 | 80% |
