CBS Edges Out NBC in Sunday Show Viewers

By Christopher Peleo-Lazar  //  September 29, 2011 | 6:08 p.m.
Updated: October 3, 2011 | 8:25 a.m.

CBS's Face the Nation won the Sept. 25th Sunday show viewership battle, narrowly edging out NBC's Meet the Press by 33,000 viewers. It's a rare win for Face The Nation over Meet The Press, which has won 56 consecutive quarters and 14 consecutive seasons.

But even as CBS had slightly more viewers, with 2.521 million people tuning in on Sunday, Face The Nation and Meet the Press tied in ratings, with each garnering a 1.8 rating/5 share, while ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour came in third with 1.984 million viewers and a 1.5 rating/4 share and Fox News Sunday had a 0.9 rating/2 share.

"We always like it when we win, and I'm sure they do too," Face The Nation moderator Bob Schieffer told Hotline On Call, "David Gregory and I are friends. Tim Russert and I were very close friends. We all enjoy competing against one another. Just because it's because it's your competitor doesn't mean you have to hate him."

Face the Nation's guests were Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus. They discussed the most recent GOP presidential debate and President Obama's 2012 outlook.

Meet the Press hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and featured NBC's Education Nation panel. An NBC spokesperson noted that ratings for Meet the Press were substantially higher Face The Nation in the Washington, D.C. area, a very important and influential audience for Sunday programs. The spokesperson also pointed out that Meet the Press has a rebroadcast audience of nearly one million viewers making the total viewers for Sunday's show almost 3.5 million. Fox News Sunday has a similar statistic of counting viewers and would have had an audience of 2.8 million with the rebroadcast taken into account.

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