‘Sunday Night Football’ Ratings Hit Season Low As Baltimore Ravens Rip Steelers

The mantra for the current NFL champions in Philadelphia may be “fly Eagles, fly,” but last night on Sunday Night Football it was Super Bowl XLVII winners the Baltimore Ravens who hit high notes in tearing the Pittsburgh Steelers apart.

In a 26-14 win on SNF, the Ravens are now 3-1 this season and the Keystone State team is near the bottom of the AFC North. The game in Pittsburgh on Sunday also saw another type of bottoming out in the ratings for the league and the NFL, as the primetime Week 4 matchup drew a 12.3/21 in metered-market results to hit a season low.

The early number is down 10% from the Detroit Lions’ easy win over the New England Patriots last week.

However, compared to the near season low of the comparative Week 4 game last year, the metered markets for last night’s SNF is up 12%. A year ago, the Seattle Seahawks blew out the Indianapolis Colts on October 1, 2017 — the day of the tragic mass shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas.

Last year’s Week 4 game went on to earn 16.7 million viewers and a 5.8/21 rating among adults 18-49 in the final numbers. Last week’s SNF scored a 6.4/25 in the key demo and 19.5 million sets of eyeballs.

With all that, as one would expect from a night of NFL, NBC won Sunday’s primetime yesterday — cause sometimes you fly and sometimes you flock:

We’ll update with more SNF numbers as we get them, plus the very timely 60 Minutes season debut and the rest of what was on the Big 4 last night. Until then, here’s a couple of stats for you: Last night’s game was the top metered-market rating in Week 4 for SNF since 2015 when the New Orleans Saints beat the big-draw Dallas Cowboys in overtime. Also, last night’s SNF peaked in the second-quarter time slot of 9:15-9:30 PM ET with a 13.3/22.

Here are the top 10 local markets for the Ravens’ pecking of those Steelers:

1. Pittsburgh 42.7/60
2. Baltimore 32.3/49
3. Washington D.C. 19.1/34
4. New Orleans 19.0/26
5. Norfolk 18.1/29
6. Richmond 16.1/25
7. Denver 16.0/28
8. Cincinnati 15.9/25
9. Columbus 15.4/26
10. Nashville 14.9/23

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