NEW YORK — "Mad Men" and "True Blood" both have a big influence on popular culture. But television ratings show how it's possible to overestimate their reach.
The Nielsen Co. said Tuesday that an estimated 5.2 million people watched the fifth season premiere of "True Blood" on HBO on Sunday, down 4 percent from the 2011 season debut. "Mad Men" concluded its fifth season on AMC before 2.7 million, up 11 percent from last year's finale.
Meanwhile, a dozen reruns of broadcast network series each drew more viewers last week than the "True Blood" premiere, 11 of them on CBS. They include "The Mentalist," ''NCIS," ''Two Broke Girls" and "Criminal Minds."
In fairness, HBO is a premium cable network that is available in less than half of the homes that get CBS.
With the summer schedule in full flower, NBC's "America's Got Talent" assumed the mantle of television's most popular program. Its Monday and Tuesday episodes were the only programs to exceed 10 million viewers last week.
Led by its reruns, CBS won the week with an average of 5.8 million viewers in prime time last week (3.9 rating, 7 share). NBC had 4.9 million (3.1, 5), ABC had 4.6 million (3.0, 5), Fox had 4 million (2.4, 4), ION Television had 1.1 million (0.8, 1) and the CW had 590,000 (0.4, 1).
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 3.3 million viewership average (1.7 rating, 3 share). Telemundo had 1 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 570,000 (0.3, 1), Estrella had 180,000 and Azteca 100,000 (both 0.1, 0).
NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.5 million viewers (5.1, 11). ABC's "World News" was second with 6.7 million (4.6, 10) and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.2 million viewers (3.6, 7).
A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.7 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
For the week of June 4-10, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "America's Got Talent" (Tuesday, 8 p.m.), NBC, 12.55 million; "America's Got Talent" (Monday), NBC, 12.22 million; "NCIS," CBS, 8.67 million; "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 8.22 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 8.1 million; "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 7.46 million; "Person of Interest," CBS, 6.99 million; "America Ninja Warrior," NBC, 6.78 million; "The Bachelorette," ABC, 6.774 million; "Concert for the Queen," ABC, 6.77 million.
