ESPN gobbled up the competition during Thanksgiving week, winning the top spot on both the primetime and total day charts on the strength of its college and pro football telecasts.
The sports network averaged 3.3 million primetime viewers during the week of November 20-26 to secure its third-straight chart win, according to Nielsen numbers supplied by Fox News Channel. ESPN benefited from its November 20 Philadelphia Eagles-Kansas City Chiefs Monday Night Football telecast, which drew a season-high 11.4 million viewers. The network also drew more than 5 million viewers for its November 25 Florida State-Florida college football game.
Hallmark Channel’s lineup of holiday movies helped the network pull into second place with 1.6 million viewers, followed by Fox News Channel with 1.3 million viewers.
MSNBC finished fourth with 797,000 viewers, followed by HGTV’s 720,000 viewers and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries’ 661,000 watchers. Rounding out the top 10 most-watched networks in primetime for the week were TNT (623,000 viewers), TBS (607,000), INSP (604,000), and Food Network (585,000).
ESPN stopped Fox News’s nine-week winning streak in total day with an average of 1 million viewers, followed by Fox News (997,000 viewers), Hallmark Channel (817,000), MSNBC (587,000), and CNN (431,000).
