The Top Watched TV Shows in Oregon

Monday, September 07, 2015

Brendan Murray, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Football fans in Portland may not have a hometown team to call their own, but they still love their pigskin. Last week, the Seattle Seahawks' preseason game against the San Diego Chargers was the most watched television program in the Rose City.

GoLocal has obtained the Nielsen TV ratings for Portland for the week of August 24 to August 30. The most popular shows were the news magazine 60 Minutes on CBS and reality shows America's Got Talent, a weekly competition that airs on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and ABC's dating show Bachelor in Paradise.

The Seahawks preseason game brought in a Nielsen rating of 4.1, while America's Got Talent received a 3.8 rating on Wednesday night and a 3.6 on Tuesday night, as did 60 Minutes. Bachelor in Paradise, which airs on Sunday nights, received a rating of 3.1. The ratings do not include any Netflix Originals or Amazon Prime TV shows

Check below to see GoLocalPDX's list of the top 10 most watched shows in Oregon. The list is comprised solely of television shows and news shows that only take place once or twice per week. The original list from Nielsen was the 25 cable and network television shows with the highest ratings from the Portland area. GoLocal has omitted news shows that are on every night.

How the Nielsen Rating System Works:

Nielsen measures more than 40 percent of the world's viewing behavior

Ratings from Oregon are based on households in the Portland area.

Nielsen measures TV audiences by using viewer diaries (in which viewers record what they watch) and through set meters-small devices connected to the television. From the group of viewers with diaries and Set Meters, Nielsen measures the percentage of households that watch a TV show.

SEE LIST BELOW: The 10 Most Watched TV Shows in Oregon

Fox 12 News on Top

Nielsen's top rated shows for last week included just one regular nightly news show, the channel 12 KPTV Fox 10 O'Clock News.

The Wednesday, Saturday, Thursday and Tuesday editions rated especially well, capturing the number five, seven, eight and nine spots, with ratings of 3.0, 2.8, 2.8, 2.7 and 2.7, respectively. The Monday edition finished in the tenth spot, with a 2.6 rating, and the Friday edition finished 19th with a 2.1 rating.

CBS Hold Strong

Excluding shows that run everyday, like the nightly news, CBS dominated the week's ratings. The network captured six of the top 25 shows overall, including its showing of the Seattle Seahawks game, which finished first for the week.

The network also aired the number four show of the week in 60 Minutes, the number 18 slot with its reality show Big Brother, which received a rating of of 2.1 on Sunday. Subsequent episodes of the show that week also fared well, capturing the 23 and 24th slots with its Thursday editions, which each received ratings of 2.0.

The network also aired the 21st ranked show of the week, Zoo, on Tuesday, receiving a 2.0 rating.

Nearby Markets

San Francisco’s TV ratings for the week were filled with more live sports than Portland's, by a wide margin. Four of the area's top five rated shows for the week were sporting events, including the San Francisco 49'ers preseason game against the Dallas Cowboys on Aug. 29, which captured the week;s top spot with a rating of 5.2. Telecasts of San Francisco Giants games occupied the two and three lots, receiving ratings of 4.2 and 3.9, respectively.

In a bit of a surprise, the Seahawks game, which rated as the top broadcast in Portland last week, did not capture the top slot in Seattle. That honor belonged to America's Got Talent, which secured the first and second slots with its Wednesday and Tuesday editions, respectively, that received ratings of 4.2 and 4.1

Seattle also watched NBC's American Ninja Warrior at a high rate, giving the athletic competition show a 2.9 rating, good enough to be the third most-watched show of the week.