One week into March Madness, CBS is feeling good.
Based on ratings from the nation's largest media markets, the Nielsen company said CBS and the Turner Networks had the second best performance over the last 29 years for the first four games of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. The only year to do better in that period was 2015.
Nielsen did not have exact viewership numbers, but Duke's close call Sunday against Central Florida was particularly popular.
In an otherwise quiet week for prime-time television, CBS' "60 Minutes" was the only show to top 10 million viewers.
Last Friday, when word got out that special counsel Robert Mueller had completed his work and cable television began talking about it, Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel and Rachel Maddow had audience sizes that were remarkable similar. Hannity's show was seen by 2.96 million and Maddow's by 2.9 million, Nielsen said.
CBS easily won the week in prime-time, averaging 6.2 million viewers. ABC had 4.4 million viewers, NBC had 4.3 million, Fox had 2.8 million, ION Television had 1.4 million, Univision had 1.2 million, Telemundo had 1.1 million and the CW had 920,000.
Fox News Channel was the week's most popular cable network, averaging 2.45 million viewers. TBS had 2.03 million, TNT had 1.87 million, MSNBC had 1.69 million and HGTV had 1.28 million.
ABC's "World News Tonight" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.6 million viewers. The "NBC Nightly News" was secod with 7.9 million and the "CBS Evening News" had 6.3 million.
For the week of March 18-24, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "60 Minutes," CBS, 10.25 million; "The Voice" (Monday), NBC, 9.88 million; "NCIS," CBS, 8.46 million; "This is Us," NBC, 7.65 million; "God Friended Me," CBS, 7.53 million; "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 7.16 million; "American Idol" (Sunday), ABC, 7.08 million; "Survivor," CBS, 7.06 million; "Grey's Anatomy," ABC, 7 million; NCAA Men's Basketball Tourney: Minnesota vs. Michigan St., CBS, 6.49 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)
