Nielsen: Year’s top shows were unscripted

Reality TV isn’t what it used to be, with ratings for “American Idol” and “Dancing with the Stars” sliding sharply this past year.

But unscripted still trumped scripted in the end-of-year TV rankings released this week by Nielsen.

Just two scripted series made the top 10 regularly scheduled shows, and neither were comedies, notable considering the huge amount of hype around the comedy revival over the past year.

CBS had both series: No. 7 “NCIS” (13.63 million total viewers) and No. 10 “Vegas” (11.68 million total viewers). Those numbers include repeats.

The top show of the year was NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” which averaged 21.23 million viewers.

Fox’s “American Idol Wednesday” was second with 18.01 million, followed by “American Idol Thursday” with 16.45 million.

NBC’s pregame kickoff, a 20-minute show before “SNF,” was fourth with 15.7 million, followed by the Monday and Tuesday editions of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” with 15.46 million and 13.92 million, respectively.

NBC’s “The Voice” also made the list with 13.3 million viewers, finishing eighth.

“Monday Night Football” was the only cable show to make top 10, ranking ninth with 13.24 million viewers.
 

Tags: abc, american idol, American Idol Thursday, cbs, dwts, monday night football, nbc, nielsen, reality, scripted shows, snf, sunday night football, top 10 tv shows, top tv shows, unscripted shows, viewers