Ratings Watch: Football, ‘Big Bang Theory’, ‘NCIS’, ‘Walking Dead’, Dem Debates Lead the Week

Michael Schneider October 24, 2015, 7:16 pm

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Quite a mix of programming leading this week’s ranker of most-watched programming, with football, comedy, drama, zombies, a soap opera, a reality competition, a newsmagazine and a presidential debate all in the top 10. (Now if someone could mash all those up, it would be the No. 1 show on TV!)

The Oct. 14 Democratic presidential debate on CNN wound up being one of the top 10 non-sports cable telecasts in history, although below this year’s Donald Trump-infused Republican debates.

Shows earning the largest audience lift last week included The Walking Dead (4.9 million), Blindspot (4.1 million), Empire (4.1 million), The Big Bang Theory (4.1 million), The Blacklist (4 million), Quantico (3.6 million, Scandal (3.5 million), Modern Family (3.4 million), How to Get Away with Murder (3.4 million), Blue Bloods (3.3 million) and American Horror Story (3 million).

Here are the top 25 shows (including Live+3 DVR and VOD data) for the week of October 12 to October 18.

RANK	SHOW & NETWORK	LIVE+3 DAYS DVR/VOD	WATCHED LIVE/ SAME DAY
1	Sunday Night Football: New England vs. Indianapolis NBC	22.9	22.8
2	The Big Bang Theory CBS	19.0	15.0
3	NCIS CBS	18.8	16.0
4	The Walking Dead AMC	17.1	12.2
5	Empire Fox	16.3	12.2
6	Nevada Democratic Debate CNN	16.3	15.8
7	Thursday Night Football: Atlanta vs. New Orleans CBS/NFL Network	14.9	14.8
8	NCIS: New Orleans CBS	14.8	12.5
9	60 Minutes CBS	14.2	13.8
10	The Voice (Monday) NBC	14.0	12.0
11	Blue Bloods CBS	13.9	10.6
12	Dancing with the Stars (Monday) ABC	13.0	11.7
13	Blindspot NBC	12.6	8.4
14	Scorpion CBS The Voice (Tuesday) NBC Monday Night Football: Pittsburgh vs. San Diego ESPN	12.3 12.3 12.3	9.4 10.1 12.2
17	Criminal Minds CBS	11.8	9.1
18	Scandal ABC	11.6	8.1
19	Hawai’i Five-0 CBS	11.5	9.1
20	Madam Secretary CBS	11.3	9.6
21	Modern Family ABC	11.2	7.9
22	Grey’s Anatomy ABC	11.0	8.2
23	The Blacklist NBC Survivor CBS	10.9 10.9	6.9 9.1
25	Limitless CBS	10.8	8.0