TV Ratings: ‘Succession’ finale grabs the series’ biggest audience ever; NBA playoffs win the week

Alexander Skarsgård, center, and Matthew Macfadyen to his right in the HBO drama “Succession.” Sunday’s series finale of “Succession” garnered a series-high 2.9 million viewers across Max and linear telecasts, topping the previous high for the series, 2.75 million for the April 30 episode, according to a statement from the streaming service’s parent company, Warner Bros. Its ratings were led by the season finale of the singing competition “The Voice,” eighth for the week and fourth among non-sports programs, averaging 6.215 million viewers. Fox averaged 1.21 million viewers, led by professional wrestling’s “WWE Friday Night SmackDown,” 40th for the week averaging 2.159 million viewers. Masters” on ABC; the season’s final two episodes of the NBC singing competition “The Voice”; and the season finales of the three elements of NBC’s Chicago franchise, “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago Med” and “Chicago P.D.” Fox News Channel was third among cable networks for the fifth consecutive week, averaging 1.33 million viewers, and first in prime time among cable news networks for the 119th consecutive week. The cable prime-time top 20 consisted of four NBA playoff games — three on TNT and one on ESPN; three NBA pregame or postgame shows — two on TNT and one on ESPN; five Fox News Channel weeknight political talk shows — three broadcasts of “Hannity” and two of “Fox News Tonight,” hosted by Trey Gowdy; three MSNBC political talk shows — “The Rachel Maddow Show” and the Wednesday and Thursday editions of “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell”; Bravo’s “Vanderpump Rules”; TNT’s coverage of Game 4 of the NHL’s Eastern Conference finals; History’s “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch”; and the first segment of USA Network’s “WWE Raw.” Netflix’s most streamed title was the Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring action comedy “FUBAR,” whose eight episodes were watched for 88.94 million hours in their first four days of release.