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Fact check: What are the most-watched programs on ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox in 2024?
Executive Summary
The data supplied indicate that CBS dominated total-viewer counts in 2024, claiming a plurality of the season’s most-watched programs while major sports telecasts — above all the Super Bowl — drove single-event peaks across networks. News and franchise procedurals kept strong linear audiences for NBC and CBS, while ABC and Fox saw their top slots occupied by a mix of special-event sports/awards telecasts and a few breakout entertainment series, depending on whether the metric counts single broadcasts or season averages [1] [2] [3]. This analysis reconciles claims about the “most-watched” titles by distinguishing event-level viewership (Super Bowl, AFC/NFC games, Oscars) from season-long network leaders and highlights where the supplied sources diverge on definitions and rankings [4] [5] [6].
1. Why CBS appears to “own” 2024’s top lists — and what that phrase actually means
CBS’s claim to the most-watched crown rests on total viewers across a mix of events and series, and several supplied summaries report CBS placing eight of the Top 10 programs when aggregating broadcast and entertainment titles for the 2024–2025 season. The sources describe CBS hits such as Tracker and enduring library titles like Matlock being among the highest-rated in linear viewers, with CBS benefiting from strong franchise programming and marquee acquisitions that inflate season-long averages [1]. That narrative contrasts with single-broadcast peaks where CBS only wins when it carries specific events; the distinction matters because one set of sources focuses on season averages and series ranks, while others focus on single-event peaks like the Super Bowl that can skew yearly totals toward whichever network carried them [4] [5].
2. Sports and awards telecasts: single nights that dwarf weekly series
The supplied materials consistently show sports events and awards shows as the largest single-night audiences of 2024, with the Super Bowl and major NFL playoff games recording far higher average viewers than regular weekly entertainment series; one dataset lists the Super Bowl as the largest-ever average at 127.7 million for its entry [5]. Other summaries identify the Super Bowl and conference championship games as top-rated telecasts in 2024, and they explain why networks that carry those events post huge single-broadcast numbers that outstrip any season-long scripted series [3] [2]. This produces a recurring tension in the sources: networks tout season-leading series while public ratings tallies spike around one-off events, making the label “most-watched” dependent on whether you mean a single program airing or an ongoing show averaged across a season [4] [3].
3. NBC’s story: strong 18–49 performance and franchise dramas
NBC’s narrative across the supplied documents emphasizes strength in key advertiser demographics and procedural franchises, including the One Chicago universe and Law & Order entries, which ranked among the network’s most-watched series for the 2024–2025 season. One source reports NBC finishing second in overall viewers for the year but first in adults 18–49, buoyed by event television such as the Paris Olympics and steady franchise programming that attracted consistent weekly audiences [6] [2]. The materials contrast NBC’s demographic gains with CBS’s total-viewer dominance, underlining an important nuance for advertisers: highest total viewers is not the same metric as best performance among younger adults, and NBC’s strategy appears oriented to the latter even when it does not top raw-viewer counts [2] [6].
4. ABC and Fox: event-driven highs and a flatter series landscape
ABC and Fox show more mixed results in the supplied datasets, with ABC described as nearly flat year-over-year and Fox down by double digits in total viewers in one summary, partly because Fox did not carry the Super Bowl in 2024 and lacked similarly massive single broadcasts [2]. ABC’s top entries include a mix of entertainment series and improved time-slot performers, while Fox’s most-watched items tend to be sports or one-off events when present; both networks’ season-long scripted series generally register lower total-viewer averages than CBS’s leaders in the provided rankings [1] [4]. These sources suggest the operational implication: without a major sports property or a runaway streaming hit on the same measurement list, ABC and Fox will lag in raw linear-viewer totals, a point the networks themselves emphasize when explaining programming and scheduling choices [1] [2].
5. How definitions and counting rules change the “most-watched” answer
The supplied materials demonstrate that the phrase “most-watched” is contingent on definitions: whether counting a single-broadcast average (Super Bowl, playoffs, Oscars), a season-average for a network series (Tracker, Reacher), or combining streaming and linear figures into overall totals. Different source excerpts list Top 100 streaming-plus-broadcast shows, top linear broadcasts, and season-rankings; they produce different winners depending on which metric is applied [4] [5] [7]. To resolve the question for a specific network in 2024, one must choose the metric: for single broadcasts, sports and awards dominate; for season-averaged entertainment series, CBS titles frequently top the lists in total viewers; for advertiser-sensitive 18–49 measures, NBC often leads [4] [6] [2].