Kenneth Walker III (9) of the Seattle Seahawks breaks a tackle against Milton Williams of the New England Patriots during Super Bowl LX. Ishika Samant/Getty Images Logo text For the first time since 2008, a network other than CBS can claim the title of the most-watched broadcaster in primetime. NBC will win the first 2025-26 season in total viewers — the first time that’s happened since the latter days of Must-See TV.
With the September-to-May TV season coming to a close, NBC will finish with an across-the-board win among all viewers, adults 18-49 and adults 25-54. The victory is thanks in no small part to two-plus weeks in February, when the second most-watched Super Bowl ever and a resurgent Winter Olympics put NBC out of reach of its fellow broadcast networks.
Through May 17, NBC has averaged 5.83 million viewers in primetime this season, up about 14 percent from 2024-25. CBS — which had won every season since 2008-09 in total viewers — is second with 4.63 million (down 19 percent), a little ahead of ABC‘s 4.33 million (up 1 percent). Fox rounds out the big four networks with 3.41 million viewers (down 11 percent). Unless otherwise noted, all figures in this story are Nielsen linear ratings only and don’t include streaming (which would bump up the averages for all four networks by a significant amount).
The total viewer win for the season is NBC’s first since the 2001-02 season, when Friends and ER were two of the top three shows on TV. The network also had the top show this season in Sunday Night Football, which extended its record of consecutive No. 1 finishes to 15 seasons. SNF averaged 21 million viewers on NBC and 23.5 million including streaming on Peacock and other digital platforms.
CBS fell the farthest, partly because of some declines in individual shows. But the network also rested most of its scripted series, including strong performers like Tracker, NCIS and Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, in January and most of February, two of the higher-use TV months of the year.
ABC edged up, and measuring entertainment programming only (i.e., not sports and news), it’s the only network to grow year to year in total viewers. Fox had some successes with shows like Best Medicine, Doc and Fear Factor: House of Fear; its year-to-year decline is explained mostly by having had the Super Bowl last season and not this season.
NBC also led the key ad-sales demographics of adults 18-49 and 25-54. In the 18-49 demo, it scored a 1.01 rating (equivalent to about 1.37 million viewers in that age range) in primetime for NBC’s first win in that measure since the 2021-22 season (also a Super Bowl/Winter Olympics year). Fox came in second with a 0.64 rating/871,000 viewers, followed by ABC (0.57/776,000) and CBS (0.45/613,000).
Among adults 25-54, NBC posted a 1.32 rating, equivalent to 1.66 million viewers. Fox (0.83/1.04 million) edged ABC (0.77/968,000) for second place, and CBS was fourth at 0.64/804,000.
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