Nielsen: TV viewing up overall, but not last week

You wouldn't necessarily know it from last week, but Nielsen Media Research says TV viewership is on the rise.

The company said Tuesday that the average American watched 127 1/4 hours of television in May, or the equivalent of more than five full days. That's up from 121 hours and 48 minutes in May 2007.

The typical person also spent 26 1/2 hours using the Internet in May, up from 24 hours, 16 minutes the year before, Nielsen said.

So how come TV ratings for individual networks and shows keep going down? That's because of all the choices; nearly two-thirds of American homes now have digital cable or satellite with an average of 160 channels to choose from.

For the broadcast networks, Nielsen's report Tuesday was a welcome diversion. The week of the Fourth of July is traditionally the lightest week of the year for television watching, with barbecues and fireworks taking precedence over the repeats and reality shows on television.

Last week was no different. Even though CBS averaged more viewers than any other network, it still had a record low rating in the youthful demographic of 18-to-49-year-old viewers. The start of another "Big Brother" edition is likely to bring more young viewers back.

NBC's "America's Got Talent" was once again the nation's most popular show, the only one to log more than 10 million viewers.

CBS averaged 6.3 million viewers in prime-time (4.2 rating, 8 share). NBC had 5.9 million (3.7, 7), Fox 5.4 million (3.4, 7), ABC 4.6 million (3.0, 6), the CW 1.4 million (0.9, 2), My Network TV 890,000 (0.6, 1) and ION Television 370,000 (0.2, 0).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision averaged 3.3 million viewers (1.7 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 950,000 (0.5, 1), TeleFutura 500,000 (0.3, 1) and Azteca 120,000 (0.1, 0).

NBC's "Nightly News" won the evening news ratings race, averaging 7.4 million viewers (5.2 rating, 11 share). ABC's "World News" had 6.9 million (4.9, 11) and the "CBS Evening News" 5.6 million (3.8, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,128,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 112.8 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of June 30-July 6, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "America's Got Talent," NBC, 12.04 million; "Wipeout," ABC, 9.46 million; "Criminal Minds," CBS, 9.13 million; "So You Think You Can Dance" (Wednesday), Fox, 8.76 million; "CSI: NY," CBS, 8.5 million; "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 8.49 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 8.21 million; "House," Fox, 8.06 million; "CSI: Miami," CBS, 8.03 million; "Hell's Kitchen, Fox, 8.03 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is a division of CBS Corp. Fox is a unit of News Corp. NBC is owned by General Electric Co. Telemundo is owned by General Electric. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.