Nielsen ranks the year’s most popular TV shows

Another year is (almost) in the books, and while Netflix continued to inundate TV watchers, it was not a particularly great year for traditional TV, at least in terms of ratings.

2018 peaked early, with the top 10 telecasts, as measured by Nielsen, all airing within the first three months of the year. Six were football games, a seventh was the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, and the eighth (“This Is Us“) won its big crowd courtesy of its post-Super Bowl time slot.

Only two shows without a sports tie-in made the top 10. The 2018 Oscars (No. 8) turned out to be the awards show’s least-watched edition in recent history. And “Roseanne,” the year’s top-rated series (and the No. 9 telecast for its March 27 premiere), was canceled in May after its star’s racist tweets. (A replacement spinoff, “The Conners,” has proved healthy but not as popular. )

Among other new shows, NBC’s “Manifest” has benefited from strong DVR playback viewing, though interest has cooled in recent weeks, and the 2017-18 season’s big breakout hit, ABC’s “The Good Doctor,” has also been tanking this fall, though it still ranked eighth for the full year.

The breakdown:

Top 10 telecasts of 2018

Super Bowl LII (NBC) 104.1
Super Bowl post-game (NBC) 74.0
NFC Championship (Fox) 42.4
NFC Playoff (Fox) 35.8
This Is Us (NBC) 33.4
Winter Olympics opening (NBC) 29.3
College Football champ (ESPN) 27.9
Oscars (ABC) 27.4
Roseanne (P) (ABC) 27.3
AFC Divisional Playoff (CBS) 26.9

Top 10 regularly scheduled series

Roseanne (ABC) 20.0
Sunday Night Football (NBC) 19.6
The Big Bang Theory (CBS) 18.3
NCIS (CBS) 16.7
This Is Us (NBC) 16.6
Young Sheldon (CBS) 15.7
Manifest (NBC) 14.6
The Good Doctor (ABC) 14.5
America’s Got Talent (NBC) 14.3
Bull (CBS) 13.5

Average audience for prime-time broadcast or cable series, including delayed viewing via DVRs or on-demand, in millions of viewers, from 1/1/18-11/18/18. Source: Nielsen

Viewers also continue to time-shift TV watching through their DVRs, and the effect was most pronounced on basic-cable series, which saw their ratings spike between their first airing and seven days later.