Chuck Todd’s Meet the Press Wins Big in Second Quarter Ratings, Besting ABC and CBS Sunday Shows

Meet the Press, the venerable NBC News political talk show hosted by Chuck Todd, just had its 10th consecutive quarter as the number one Sunday show, averaging a hefty 3.81 million total viewers and 901,000 in the 25-54 age demo.

Last month was also the third consecutive June that Meet the Press has been the top Sunday show, with an average of 3.28 million total viewers and 755,000 in the 25-54 demo for the month.

For the second quarter of 2020, according to NBC News, Todd’s total viewer ratings were 19 percent higher on average than ABC News Sunday show This Week — hosted by George Stephanopoulos — and two percent greater than CBS News’ Face The Nation, — hosted by Margaret Brennan — while demo ratings were 25 percent greater than ABC and 18 percent greater than CBS respectively.

While Meet the Press drew 901,000 in the demo, Face The Nation notched 765,000 and This Week drew 721,000. In total viewers, Meet the Press drew 3.81 million, just eking out Face The Nation with 3.75 million and This Week with 3.29 million.

Fox News Sunday, hosted by Chris Wallace, averaged 1.5 million total viewers and 418,000 in the demo for the quarter. When adding up repeats of the show on Fox and Fox News, FNS reached 5 million total viewers and 1.1 million in the demo.

According to an NBC News press release, it was Meet the Press’s best quarterly performance in more than three years (since the first quarter of 2017) and second best in 12 years (since 2008).

June 2020 saw similar results.

“MTP was also the #1 most-watched Sunday show across the board for the month of June, marking its second straight month at #1 and the third straight year MTP has won June across the board,” NBC News said in a statement. “3.288 million total viewers tuned into MTP in June: +15 percent (+419,000) more than ABC and one percent (+42,000) more than CBS. Compared to last June, MTP was up +13 percent.”