During slow week, Univision takes milestones

[July 11, 2012]  NEW YORK (AP) -- While fireworks and barbecues enticed many television viewers away from their sets last week, Univision fans remained relatively loyal.

The Nielsen company said the leading Spanish-language network beat all of its English-language counterparts last week among viewers ages 18 to 49, the chief demographic for advertising sales.

The Fourth of July week generally stands as the least-watched week of television all year, with good weather, family activities and an absence of fresh programming keeping people out of their living rooms.

Univision is airing new episodes of its telenovelas, however, and its viewers are particularly keyed into "La Que No Podia Amar" (The One Who Couldn't Love). Univision has topped the 18-to-49 viewership rankings twice before, on the weeks before Labor Day weekend in 2011 and 2010. The network has never won among all viewers.

Only one program -- Monday's edition of NBC's "America's Got Talent" -- topped the 10 million mark in viewers last week, according to the Nielsen Co.

CBS led among all prime-time viewers with an average of 5.3 million viewers (3.5 rating, 6 share), last week while NBC had 4.9 million (3.0, 6). ABC averaged 4 million viewers (2.6, 5), Fox had 3.5 million (2.1, 4), ION Television had 1.1 million (0.8, 1) and the CW had 590,000 (0.4, 1)

Univision was on top of the Spanish-language networks with a prime-time average of 3.4 million (1.8,3). Telemundo had 1.2 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 680,000 (0.3, 1), Estrella had 160,000 and Azteca 120,000 (both 0.1).

NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.6 million viewers (5.1, 11). ABC's "World News" was second with 7.3 million (4.9, 10) and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.9 million viewers (3.9, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.7 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of July 2-8, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "America's Got Talent" (Monday), NBC, 10.4 million; "America's Got Talent" (Tuesday), NBC, 9.32 million; "The Big Bang Theory" (Thursday, 8:30 p.m.), CBS, 9.05 million; "The Big Bang Theory" (Thursday, 8 p.m.), CBS, 8.32 million; "NCIS," CBS, 8.17 million; "Person of Interest," CBS, 8.121 million; "Macy's 4th of July Fireworks," NBC, 8.116 million; "The Bachelorette," ABC, 7.5 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 7.49 million; "U.S. Olympic Trials" (Monday, 8 p.m.), NBC, 7.41 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

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Online:

http://www.nielsen.com/

[Associated Press; By DAVID BAUDER]

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.