The big news in TV ratings the week of June 15-21 was how few people bothered to watch the news -- the three network evening newscasts, anyway.
Logging only 4.9 million viewers, the "CBS Evening News" slipped below 5 million for the first time on record. And ABC's "World News" had 6.4 million viewers -- a drop of a half-million viewers from the week before, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Not helping matters: ABC's Charles Gibson and CBS' Katie Couric had the week off from their respective anchor desks.
Brian Williams was on duty at "NBC Nightly News," which won the week with a three-day average of 7.8 million viewers, down a half-million from the week before. (NBC's U.S. Open coverage led to preemptions Thursday and Friday.)
In prime time, a slew of popular repeats of such episodic series as "NCIS," "Two and a Half Men" and "The Mentalist" helped CBS win the week. That network had nine of the top 10 most-watched programs, and 16 of the top 20.
For the week, networks averages were: CBS, 7.0 million viewers (4.7 rating, 9 share); Fox, 4.7 million (3.0, 6); NBC, 4.6 million (3.1, 6); ABC, 3.7 million (2.4, 4); My Network, 1.3 million (0.8, 2); CW, 950,000 viewers (0.7, 1); ION, 810,000 (0.5, 1).
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1 NCIS (CBS)
