The MindShare Top 50
The NFL’s opening week takes No. 1 at 80.9: the biggest entry on this chart since the World Cup final, and the first time a single week of anything has landed above 80 since July. Six nationally televised windows summed 122.4 million average viewers: Patriots–Seahawks on the Wednesday Kickoff at 25.1 million on NBC and Peacock, the first NFL game ever played in Australia at 18.5 million on Netflix, CBS’s early window at 14.1 million, FOX’s late window at 20.35 million, CBS’s late window at 18.6 million and Cowboys–Giants on Sunday Night Football at 25.7 million, the most-watched Week 1 edition of SNF since 2015. Each window is scored at three hours, an est. 367M attention-hours in all. College football’s second Saturday sits at No. 2 (50.6) on seventeen windows and 52.4 million viewers, led by Ohio State–Texas at 13.99 million on ABC, the most-watched Week 2 game on record. The two football packages together outscore the other forty-eight entries combined.
The US Open finals weekend is the week’s biggest new entry at No. 3 (25.5), and it was a week of returns. Alexander Zverev’s win over Ben Shelton drew 3.2 million on ABC, the most-watched men’s final since ESPN took the tournament in 2009, after Shelton’s Friday semifinal set a record of its own. Late night came back from Labor Day: Kimmel re-enters at No. 27 on his own return week, up 59% on the repeats. 60 Minutes re-enters at No. 19 on its season premiere out of the NFL doubleheader, and ABC’s 9/11 anniversary night lands at No. 21. On Netflix, Death of the Pastor’s Wife holds No. 5 on a third straight week atop the US TV list, Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Again? is new at No. 9, The Gentlemen’s second season climbs to No. 12 on its first full week, and Crew Girl enters at No. 34. The Mandalorian and Grogu re-enters at No. 15 after a full week at Disney+ No. 1 and The Drop is new at No. 23; The Paper’s ten-episode drop on Peacock misses the fifty by a tenth of a point. Practical Magic 2 opens at No. 24 on $30.0 million, ending Spider-Man’s six-week run at the box office; Spider-Man itself leaves the chart from No. 40 with the all-time domestic record $1.5 million away. Olivia Rodrigo leads music at No. 35, with Ella Langley at No. 40 as Choosin’ Texas ties Mariah Carey’s all-time record with a twenty-second week at Hot 100 No. 1. The evening newscasts all slip in a week the football packages swallowed: World News Tonight from No. 6 to No. 11, Nightly News from No. 12 to No. 16 and the CBS Evening News from No. 34 to No. 39. Among podcasts, The Daily re-enters at No. 37 at Apple No. 1 in the first week the standings blend the Spotify, Apple and iHeart weeklies, and Beauty in Black’s third week falls out from No. 7.
On the numbers. The Kickoff figure is Nielsen’s and includes NBC’s own streaming; the Melbourne figure is Netflix’s. College windows under half a million viewers are not counted, and the US Open entry carries only the four sessions with a published audience, so both are floors rather than ceilings. The evening newscasts rest on the two nights Nielsen measured under their regular titles (Tuesday and Thursday), since Monday was coded as a Labor Day special and the Wednesday and Friday editions were retitled; the average is applied to the five nights each newscast actually aired.
The US Open finals weekend is the week’s biggest new entry at No. 3 (25.5), and it was a week of returns. Alexander Zverev’s win over Ben Shelton drew 3.2 million on ABC, the most-watched men’s final since ESPN took the tournament in 2009, after Shelton’s Friday semifinal set a record of its own. Late night came back from Labor Day: Kimmel re-enters at No. 27 on his own return week, up 59% on the repeats. 60 Minutes re-enters at No. 19 on its season premiere out of the NFL doubleheader, and ABC’s 9/11 anniversary night lands at No. 21. On Netflix, Death of the Pastor’s Wife holds No. 5 on a third straight week atop the US TV list, Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Again? is new at No. 9, The Gentlemen’s second season climbs to No. 12 on its first full week, and Crew Girl enters at No. 34. The Mandalorian and Grogu re-enters at No. 15 after a full week at Disney+ No. 1 and The Drop is new at No. 23; The Paper’s ten-episode drop on Peacock misses the fifty by a tenth of a point. Practical Magic 2 opens at No. 24 on $30.0 million, ending Spider-Man’s six-week run at the box office; Spider-Man itself leaves the chart from No. 40 with the all-time domestic record $1.5 million away. Olivia Rodrigo leads music at No. 35, with Ella Langley at No. 40 as Choosin’ Texas ties Mariah Carey’s all-time record with a twenty-second week at Hot 100 No. 1. The evening newscasts all slip in a week the football packages swallowed: World News Tonight from No. 6 to No. 11, Nightly News from No. 12 to No. 16 and the CBS Evening News from No. 34 to No. 39. Among podcasts, The Daily re-enters at No. 37 at Apple No. 1 in the first week the standings blend the Spotify, Apple and iHeart weeklies, and Beauty in Black’s third week falls out from No. 7.
On the numbers. The Kickoff figure is Nielsen’s and includes NBC’s own streaming; the Melbourne figure is Netflix’s. College windows under half a million viewers are not counted, and the US Open entry carries only the four sessions with a published audience, so both are floors rather than ceilings. The evening newscasts rest on the two nights Nielsen measured under their regular titles (Tuesday and Thursday), since Monday was coded as a Labor Day special and the Wednesday and Friday editions were retitled; the average is applied to the five nights each newscast actually aired.