‘Roseanne’ finishes as most-watched comedy in final week
ASSOCIATED PRESS
From left, Whitney Cummings, Michael Fishman, John Goodman, Jayden Rey, Roseanne Barr, Sara Gilbert, Sarah Chalke and Emma Kenney arrive at the Los Angeles premiere of “Roseanne” in Burbank, Calif., on March 23. ABC has canceled its hit reboot of “Roseanne” following Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett.
NEW YORK >> “Roseanne” was the week’s most-watched comedy on television for what suddenly became its final episode.
The series reached 10.58 million last Tuesday, second only to the CBS drama “NCIS” in the weekly Nielsen rankings.
“Roseanne” was expected to come back next year, but ABC canceled the series on Tuesday following a racist tweet sent out by star Roseanne Barr. The show’s revival lasted three months.
Another ABC comedy that had its last episode last week, “The Middle,” was seen by 7.09 million, Nielsen said. That last episode was planned.
The ratings were dominated by the NBA conference finals. The Western Conference series between the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets were a bigger draw than the series between the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers.
CBS won the week in prime-time, averaging 5 million viewers. NBC had 4.4 million, ABC had 4.1 million, Fox had 2.7 million, Univision had 1.3 million, ION Television had 1.1 million, Telemundo had 1 million and the CW had 840,000.
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ESPN was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 4.64 million viewers in prime time. TNT had 3.04 million, Fox News Channel had 2.22 million, MSNBC had 1.45 million and USA had 1.43 million.
ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 7.7 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.7 million viewers.
For the week of May 21-27, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships:
1. “NCIS,” CBS, 12.07 million
2. “Roseanne,” ABC, 10.58 million
3. NBA Conference Finals: Houston at Golden State, Game 6, TNT, 9.47 million
4. NBA Conference Finals: Golden State at Houston, Game 5, TNT, 9.32 million
5. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 8.78 million
6. “Dancing With the Stars: Athletes,” ABC, 8.77 million
7. “American Idol” (Monday), ABC, 8.68 million
8. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 8.67 million
9. NBA Conference Finals: Houston at Golden State, Game 4, TNT, 8.37 million
10. NBA Conference Finals: Boston at Cleveland, Game 6, ESPN, 8.27 million.
