HOLLYWOOD (CNS) - The season finale of ABC's ``Roseanne'' reboot was last week's third most-watched program, trailing ESPN's coverage of Game 7 of the NBA's Eastern Conference finals and the season finale of CBS' ``NCIS,'' according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen today.
The ``Roseanne'' season finale May 22 averaged 10.582 million viewers, 1.4 percent less than the 10.735 million average for the previous week's episode.
For its nine episodes, ``Roseanne'' averaged 18.373 million viewers through Sunday, second for the official television season which ended last Wednesday. The season-long average is based on live-plus-same-day figures for the past two weeks and live-plus-seven-day figures for the other episodes. The figure will grown when more delayed viewing is figured in.
CBS' ``The Big Bang Theory'' is the most-watched program during the official television season, averaging 18.756 million viewers for its 19 episodes.
``NBC Sunday Night Football'' averaged 18.285 million viewers for its 15 games during the 2017-18 television season. NBC claims ``Sunday Night Football'' as television's most-watched series on a live-plus-same-day basis and including games that aired before the start of the 2017-18 television season.
NBC further claims that because essentially all of "Sunday Night Football's" viewership is live, it is not fair to compare its viewership to the live-plus-seven day figures for entertainment programs.
In a week that mixed the final three days of the official television season and the first four of the summer season, ESPN's coverage of Game 7 of the NBA's Eastern Conference finals Sunday was the most-watched program, with the Cleveland Cavaliers 87-79 victory over the Boston Celtics averaging 13.305 million viewers, the second-most for an NBA game on ESPN.
``NCIS'' was second for the week, averaging 12.071 million viewers, followed by TNT's coverage of Games 6, 5 and 4 of the NBA's Western Conference finals between the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets.
CBS was the most-watched network for the 12th consecutive week, the longest streak of the season by any network, averaging 5.01 million viewers for its prime-time programming between May 21 and Sunday.
ESPN was second, averaging 4.64 million viewers. NBC was third, averaging 4.35 million, and ABC fourth, 4.09 million viewers.
Fox finished fourth among the major broadcast networks for the 18th consecutive week, averaging 2.71 million viewers for its 16 hours, 45 minutes of prime-time programming. Its most-watched program was the season finale of the hip-hop drama ``Empire'' which finished 26th overall, averaging 5.3 million viewers.
Fox also trailed cable's TNT, which averaged 3.035 million viewers.
CBS, ESPN, ABC, NBC and TNT each broadcast 22 hours of programming for ratings purposes.
The most-watched Spanish-language prime-time program was the Thursday episode of the Telemundo telenovela ``El Senor de los Cielos,'' which averaged 1.742 million viewers to finish 64th among broadcast programs. Its overall place was not available.
Univision was the most-watched Spanish-language network for the 29th consecutive week, averaging 1.26 million viewers.
Telemundo averaged 1.03 million viewers to finish second for the 29th consecutive week after four consecutive first-place finishes. UniMas was third, averaging 600,000 viewers, followed by Estrella TV, which averaged 330,000, and Azteca America, which averaged 70,000.
ABC's ``World News Tonight with David Muir'' was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 26th consecutive week and 37th of past 38, averaging 7.759 million viewers.
The ``NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt'' was second, averaging 7.453 million viewers.
The ``CBS Evening News'' averaged 5.566 million viewers. It has finished third each week since the week of Sept. 25-29, 2006.
The week's 10 most-watched prime-time programs were ESPN's coverage of Game 7 of the NBA's Eastern Conference finals; CBS' ``NCIS''; ABC's ``Roseanne''; TNT's coverage of Games 6, 5 and 4 of the NBA's Western Conference finals; ESPN's coverage of Games 6, 4 and 5 of the NBA's Eastern Conference finals; and the Tuesday edition of NBC's ``The Voice.''
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