NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� Adele attracted 10.3 million viewers to a busy Sunday night special where she debuted new music, facilitated a marriage proposal and dished with Oprah Winfrey about her divorce and workout routine.
The Nielsen company said the CBS show nearly had a bigger audience than April's Oscars ceremony and, when delayed viewers are eventually figured in, will likely exceed it.
Probably the two most popular musicians of the day both had weekend television spotlights to hawk new material. Taylor Swift's 10-minute performance of her song 鈥淎ll Too Well鈥� on 鈥淪aturday Night Live鈥� reached 5.8 million viewers, and the clip has already been seen more than 2.5 million times on YouTube.
The Academy Awards reached 10.4 million viewers on the night it was televised in April, the audience increasing to 10.7 million adding people who saw it on tape within seven days.
Live events generally do poorly in delayed viewing, leading to CBS' confidence that Adele will eventually pass Oscar. CBS is likely to rerun the musician's special, too.
Sunday was strong for CBS. The late afternoon Green Bay-Seattle football game, with 22.7 million viewers, was the most-watched event on television all week. That helped 鈥�60 Minutes,鈥� which directly followed the football game, to its biggest audience since January.
CBS led all of the networks with an average of 6.1 million viewers in prime time. NBC had 5.7 million, Fox had 3.83 million, ABC had 3.75 million, Univision had 1.5 million, Ion Television had 920,000 and Telemundo had 850,000.
ESPN led the cable networks with a prime-time average of 2.91 million viewers last week. Fox News Channel had 2.37 million, Hallmark had 1.44 million, MSNBC had 1.12 million and Paramount had 897,000.
ABC's 鈥淲orld News Tonight鈥� led the evening news ratings race with an average of 8.3 million viewers. NBC's 鈥淣ightly News鈥� had 7.1 million and the 鈥淐BS Evening News鈥� had 5.2 million.
For the week of Nov. 8-14, the 20 most popular programs, their networks and viewerships:
1. NFL Football: Kansas City at Las Vegas, NBC, 16.74 million.
2. NFL Football: Baltimore at Miami, Fox, 12.92 million.
3. 鈥�60 Minutes,鈥� CBS, 12.55 million.
4. NFL Football: Chicago at Pittsburgh, ESPN, 12.11 million.
5. 鈥淣FL Pregame,鈥� NBC, 11.83 million.
6. 鈥淣FL Postgame,鈥� Fox, 11.34 million.
7. 鈥淎dele: One Night Only,鈥� CBS, 10.33 million.
8. 鈥淔ootball Night in America, Part 3,鈥� NBC, 9.56 million.
9. 鈥淣FL Pregame,鈥� Fox, 7.68 million.
10. 鈥淵ellowstone,鈥� Paramount, 7.49 million.
11. 鈥淣CIS,鈥� CBS, 7.32 million.
12. 鈥淔BI,鈥� CBS, 7.17 million.
13. 鈥淣FL Pregame,鈥� ESPN, 7.07 million.
14. 鈥淵oung Sheldon,鈥� CBS, 7.04 million.
15. 鈥淭he Voice鈥� (Tuesday), NBC, 6.85 million.
16. 鈥淐MA Awards,鈥� ABC, 6.833 million.
17. 鈥淔ootball Night in America, Part 2,鈥� NBC, 6.83 million.
18. 鈥淐hicago Fire,鈥� NBC, 6.63 million.
19. 鈥淐hicago Med,鈥� NBC, 6.46 million.
20. 鈥淭he Voice鈥� (Monday), NBC, 6.18 million.
___
This story was first published on November 16, 2021. It was updated on November 17, 2021 to correct the title of the song Taylor Swift performed on 鈥淪NL鈥� to 鈥淎ll Too Well.鈥�
David Bauder, The Associated Press
