‘Sunday Night Football’ Ratings Hit Low, CBS & Fox Tackled By NFL Overruns
With most of the Big 4 in almost all encores and football overruns, it was a pretty sporty last Sunday before Christmas. Especially if it were the Seattle Seahawks or Sunday Night Football (5.2/16) – in both a good and bad way. The reigning Super Bowl champs pummeled the Arizona Cardinals 35 – 6 with well executed play after play – including that 79-yard touchdown by running back Marshawn Lynch in the 4th.
Undoubtedly, because of the blowout, the night was not so great for NBC and the NFL. In fact, in fast nationals, it was a season low among adults 18-49 for SNF, and one it’ll be hard pressed to make up when the final numbers come in. In a season that has seen SNF tackled by a series of big margin games, last night’s match-up was down 32% from the fast nationals of last week’s SNF. It was also down 39% from the 8.6/25 that the Dallas Cowboys victory over the Philadelphia Eagles game of December 14 rose to in final nationals. Now, it is well worth pointing out that the December 14 SNF was a much, much closer 38-27 than last night’s Seahawks’ win – and that almost always leads to everyone but the most hardcore of football fans heading elsewhere. Also last week’s game by big market teams saw a big double digit rise over the December 7 New England Patriots and San Diego Chargers battle.
The final numbers for the Seahawks vs. Cardinals game will come in likely by tomorrow, but take a look at the metered market results. Last night’s game got a 12.8/21 MM rating. While not a low among MM results, that’s a 14% drop for SNF from last week. Compared to last year’s Week 16 game between the much bigger market teams of the Chicago Bears and the Philly Eagles, last night’s game was steady with just a 3% rise in MM ratings. Despite a low, NBC, of course won the night with SNF. The network got a 4.4/14 among the key demo with 14 million viewers overall.
With all its Sunday shows over for the year, ABC showed The Sound Of Music Sing-A-Long (1.2/4) last night. The special was fairly steady with its broadcast of last December 22, with just an 8% dip. An original Mulaney (1.2/4) that started late at 7:33 PM ET, because of NFL overruns, wasn’t seen in many markets in the East Coast and Central time zones. After that Fox whipped up a night of Christmas themed encores of The Simpsons (1.1/4), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (0.9/3) as well as Family Guy (1.1/3) and Bob’s Burgers (1.1/3). In fact, it was a Bob’s Burgers (0.9/3) repeat that the East Coast and Central zones saw at 7:33 PM ET.
CBS was also a field of NFL overruns with the network’s prime pushed back to a 7:50 PM ET start. All of which means their Sunday numbers are mixing shows together in the same slot and extremely tentative. As they stand right now, very rough, its 60 Minutes (4.1/14) with NFL overruns, 60 Minutes/Undercover Boss (1.9/6), Undercover Boss/The Mentalist (1.4/4) and Mentalist/CSI (1.3/4).
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