There’s a reason why even streamers like Netflix now want a piece of the live sports action. It’s what rules our viewing habits, as witnessed by Variety‘s annual list of the year’s 100 most-watched primetime telecasts. A full 75 out of those 100 slots went to sports (up from 56 last year), thanks to 45 NFL games (the same as last year), 19 Paris Summer Olympics installments and both the NBA Finals (four out of five games) and a big World Series.
The World Series didn’t make the list last year, but in 2024 it was back with all five games — thanks to the major market Los Angeles Dodgers/New York Yankees matchup. Meanwhile, here’s a first: The NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship didn’t make the top 100 telecasts lists, but the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship did. (Both of those games were simulcast, but this chart looks only at individual networks, so those numbers would ultimately be higher — 18.87 million for the women’s final and 14.82 for the men’s final.)
The election year made two appearances in the chart, starting with the Sept. 10 Presidential Debate held by ABC. That 20.3 million number was for the Alphabet net alone; the debate was simulcast by multiple networks and actually drew an estimated audience of 67.1 million viewers — which would make it the No. 2 telecast of the year, behind only the Super Bowl.
With sports taking up the lion’s share of the list, there wasn’t much room for regular primetime fare this year. And for what was left, it all went to CBS. Specifically, the Eye network’s breakout hit “Tracker,” which took 15 slots — more than anything except the NFL and the Olympics. The other spots went to four editions of “60 Minutes” and the two back-to-back final episodes of “Young Sheldon.”
Continuing their climb were the two most-watched awards shows: The Oscars was once again the year’s most-watched entertainment telecast. Back on March 10, 20.2 million people saw “Oppenheimer” take the best picture prize — up from 19.4 million in 2023 and 17.6 million in 2022. CBS’ Grammys kudocast jumped to 18.1 million viewers this year, compared to 13.4 million in 2023 and 10.2 million in 2022. (The Grammys even beat the Oscars in adults 18-49).
Among all outlets, NBC led with the most slots with 38 (up from 24 last year), thanks to its primetime Sunday Night Football and all those evenings of Summer Olympics coverage. Next was CBS with 25, then ABC (12), Prime Video (10), Fox (9), ESPN (5) and one for Fox News.
Below, our ratings roundup of the year’s most-watched telecasts (in Live+7 ratings), according to broadcast and cable measurements, in both total viewers and adults 18-49.
