CBS is the week's top TV network, but faces more competition

CBS was television's most popular network last week, but that status is no longer the slam-dunk that it has been for the last decade and a half.

It was CBS' second weekly victory of the young television season, matching NBC's two victories, the Nielsen company said Tuesday. NBC handily won among viewers aged 18 to 49, the demographic group that it cares the most about.

Sunday night football gives NBC a big boost in the fall, but series like "This Is Us," ''Manifest" and Dick Wolf's "Chicago" dramas make the network more competitive with scripted series than it has been in the past.

The premiere of ABC's Roseanne-less sitcom "The Conners" reached more than 10.5 million viewers last week, and it was the most popular scripted series of the week among the youthful demographic. It will likely get fewer viewers this week; how big the drop is will be an important clue about the series' long-term prospects.

For the week, CBS averaged 7.6 million viewers in prime time. NBC had 7.2 million viewers, ABC had 4.7 million, Fox had 4.3 million, Telemundo had 1.3 million, ION Television and Univision were tied with a 1.2 million viewer average and the CW had 1.1 million.

TBS was the week's most popular cable network with the help of baseball playoffs, averaging 2.69 million viewers in prime time. ESPN had 2.57 million, Fox News Channel had 2.54 million, MSNBC had 1.43 million and TNT had 1.41 million.

ABC's "World News Tonight" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8 million viewers, NBC's "Nightly News" had 7.8 million and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.8 million.

For the week of Oct. 15-21, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Football: Cincinnati at Kansas City, NBC, 16.02 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 14.07 million; "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 12.23 million; NFL Football: San Francisco at Green Bay, ESPN, 12.17 million; "NCIS," CBS, 11.87 million; "Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 11.3 million; "Young Sheldon," CBS, 11 million; "The Conners," ABC, 10.57 million; "The Voice" (Monday), NBC, 9.99 million; "FBI," CBS, 9.31 million.

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox is owned by 21st Century Fox. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.

Online: http://www.nielsen.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn’t order the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.

While U.S. officials believe Putin was ultimately responsible for the death of Navalny, who endured brutal conditions during his confinement, the intelligence community has found “no smoking gun” that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death — which came soon before the Russian president's reelection — or directly ordered it, according to the official.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Soon after Navalny’s death, U.S. President Joe Biden said Putin was ultimately responsible but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it.

At the time, Biden said the U.S. did not know exactly what had happened to Navalny but that “there is no doubt” that his death “was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”

Navalny, 47, Russia’s best-known opposition politician and Putin’s most persistent foe, died Feb. 16 in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that he rejected as politically motivated.

He had been behind bars since January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

Russian officials have said only that Navalny died of natural causes and have vehemently denied involvement both in the poisoning and in his death.

In March, a month after Navalny’s death, Putin won a landslide reelection for a fifth term, an outcome that was never in doubt.

The Wall Street Journal first reported about the U.S. intelligence determination.

FILE - Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking during his interview to the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 18, 2017. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn't order the death of Navalny, the imprisoned opposition leader, in February of 2024. An official says the U.S. intelligence community has found "no smoking gun" that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death or directly ordered it. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)