Current events push ‘Black Panther,’ Fox News to big ratings

Chadwick Boseman (Invision/AP)

LOS ANGELES — A special airing of “Black Panther” in the wake of the death of star Chadwick Boseman was a bright spot for the broadcast networks in a ratings week otherwise utterly dominated by Fox News Channel’s coverage of the Republican National Convention.

ABC’s last-minute scheduling Sunday night of the Disney and Marvel film about the African superhero drew 6.27 million viewers two days after Boseman died of colon cancer at age 43.

An accompanying tribute to Boseman brought nearly 5 million viewers and was fifth among broadcast shows for the week, the Nielsen company said Tuesday.

But the week overall belonged to Fox News, which had nine of the top 10 and 14 of the top 20 prime time shows.

At No. 1 was Thursday night’s airing of the convention and the nomination acceptance speech of President Donald Trump, which drew 9 million viewers. Fox News’ Tuesday night convention coverage was second with nearly 8 million.

And the channel’s convention-connected airings of “Hannity” filled out the rest of the top five.

The RNC also gave major bumps to the nightly shows of Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham.

Fox News Channel was easily the most watched network, cable or broadcast, of the week with an average of 5.1 million viewers in prime time.

NBC was the most popular broadcast network, averaging 2.77 million viewers in prime time. ABC had 2.75 million, CBS had 2.4 million, ION Television had 1.3 million, Univision had 1.2 million Fox had 1.1 million and Telemundo had 1 million.

Among other cable networks, MSNBC was second with 1.5 million average viewers, CNN had 1.47 million, HGTV had 1.4 million and TLC had 1.2 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” led the network evening news ratings race, averaging 8.7 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 7.2 million, and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.2 million.

For the week of Aug. 24-30, the top 20 programs, their networks and viewerships:

1. “Republican National Convention” (Thursday), Fox News, 9 million.

2. “Republican National Convention” (Tuesday), Fox News, 7.9 million.

3. “Hannity” (Thursday), Fox News, 7.8 million.

4. “Hannity” (Tuesday), Fox News, 7.7 million.

5. “Hannity” (Wednesday), Fox News, 7.1 million.

6. “Republican National Convention” (Monday), Fox News, 7 million.

7. “Republican National Convention” (Wednesday), Fox News, 6.9 million.

8. “Hannity” (Monday), Fox News, 6.85 million.

9. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (Thursday), Fox News, 6.28 million.

10. “Black Panther,” ABC, 6.27 million.

11. “60 Minutes Presents,” CBS, 6.2 million.

12. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (Tuesday), Fox News, 6.1 million.

13. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (Wednesday), Fox News, 5.9 million.

14. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (Monday), Fox News, 5.7 million.

15. “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday) NBC, 5.6 million.

16. “America’s Got Talent” (Wednesday) NBC, 5 million.

17. “Chadwick Boseman Tribute,” ABC, 4.9 million.

18. “The Ingraham Angle” (Monday), Fox News, 4.8 million.

19. “The Ingraham Angle” (Tuesday), Fox News, 4.6 million.

20. “NCIS,” CBS, million. 4.5 million.