Ratings Roundup: Sunday Night Football Hits Lowest Ratings Valley in Week 2 Since 2007 By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Friday, September 20, 2019 - 9:10 am
Print This Story
Story Highlights
Ratings roundup is a rundown of rating news from the past week and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, NBC Sports leads NFL Week 2 ratings without a dive in numbers this week, college football rolls on, and Fox Sports' recent episode of PBC Fight Camp becomes the most-watched in 2019.
Sunday Night Football Scores Lowest Week 2 Number in 12 Years
According to SportsMediaWatch (SMW), NBC Sports' Eagles vs. Falcons matchup did not resonate with many NFL fans. The game averaged a 10.3 rating and 17.64 million viewers on NBC's Sunday Night Football over the weekend, marking the lowest-rated and least-watched Week 2 edition of SNF since 2007 (Chargers-Patriots: 9.8, 15.32M). The previous lows were a 10.8 and 17.84 million for Steelers-Browns in 2008.
Atlanta's narrow win declined 12% in ratings and 15% in viewership from Giants-Cowboys last year (11.7, 20.66M) and 9% and 13% respectively from Packers-Falcons in 2017 (11.3, 20.24M).
Of the Falcons' last fourteen primetime games (dating back to 2014), 11 have declined in ratings and 12 have declined in viewership. The exceptions are their Thanksgiving night loss to the Saints last season, a Super Bowl 51 rematch against New England in 2017, and the 2014 Monday Night Football opener against the Eagles.
Philadelphia led all markets for Sunday's game with a 32.6 rating and a 51 share (meaning 51% of TVs in use were tuned to the game). Atlanta ranked a distant second with a 22.3/40. New Orleans was the top neutral market (19.6/28), with Milwaukee (15.4/26) and Albuquerque, N.M. (15.3/26) rounding out the top five
The first Thursday Night Football game didn't fare much better. Buccaneers-Panthers averaged a 4.1 rating and 6.64 million viewers on NFL Network, marking the lowest-rated and least-watched TNF opener since 2011, when the series did not debut until Week 10 (Raiders-Chargers: 3.3, 5.28M) (SMW)
Tampa Bay's win declined a tick in ratings and 5% in viewership from Ravens-Bengals last year (4.2, 7.02M), and 16% and 18% respectively from Texans-Bengals in 2017 (4.9, 8.08M)
On Fox, America's Game of the Week featuring a Los Angeles Rams win over the New Orleans Saints delivered 23,336,000 viewers, which was Sunday's most-watched telecast for the second consecutive week and up 11% over last year's comparable window (21,029,000 viewers). So far, the NFL on Fox is averaging 19,081,000 viewers to make this start the best since 2016. Compared to last year, the numbers are up 7 (17,865,000 viewers)
Monday Night Football on ESPN - a 23-3 Cleveland Browns win over the New York Jets - averaged 11.9 million viewers across ESPN and ESPN Deportes, according to Nielsen.
The telecast helped ESPN win the night among all networks, broadcast or cable, in households, viewers and all key male and adult demos (12-17, 18-34, 18-49, 25-54, 55 ). MNF was also the highest-rated telecast of the night across all broadcast and cable networks among the same demos (except 55 ). ESPN Deportes also added 111,000 viewers. Through three games, MNF's average audience of 12,164,000 viewers is up 14% season-to-date (10,700,000 in 2018).
In Cleveland, the game delivered a 13.2 rating on ESPN and a 27.2 rating on WKYC-NBC, for a combined 40.4 rating. As for New York, it delivered a 6.9 rating on ESPN and a 3.6 on WPIX-CW, for a combined 10.5 rating. Nationally, the top 10 metered markets included Columbus (18.5), New Orleans (16.1), Dayton, Ohio (15.3), Buffalo (13.3), West Palm Beach (13.3), Pittsburgh (12.4), Jacksonville (11.2), Oklahoma City (11.1), Cincinnati (10.9), and San Diego (10.9)
CBS Sports' second singleheader week of the 2019 NFL season was up 27% in viewership averaging 15.244 million viewers versus its comparable second singleheader week last year (11.984 million).
The NFL on CBS also earned a ratings increase of 27% with an 8.9/22 average national household rating/share compared to a 7.0/17 last year in Week 3 (9/23/18), which was the Network's comparable second singleheader week.
Sunday's viewership and rating is The NFL on CBS' most-watched and highest-rated second singleheader week of the season since 2016 (16.446 million viewers; 9.4/21 rating/share; on 10/2/16).
The two singleheaders-to-date on CBS in 2019 are averaging 15.311 million viewers (P2 ), up 4% versus last year's 14.683 million; and are up 6% with an 8.9/22 average HH rating/share versus last year's 8.4/20. This year is the best performance for the first two singleheaders of the season on CBS since 2016 (16.243 million; 9.3/21).
ESPN Runs the Table in Latest Slate of College Football
ABC and ESPN continued its big start to the college football season in week 3, as this week ABC aired the most-watched game in the noon window and the two networks combined to air the two most-watched primetime games. Amongst all games and timeslots, the two networks aired three of the four most-watched games and ESPN set a multi-year viewership high for a Friday night game. The success included College GameDay Built by The Home Depot, as the 11-time Emmy winning show continues to grow its viewership year-over-year, both on a weekly and seasonal basis.
Pittsburgh at Penn State on ABC was the most-watched noon game window of the week across all networks and second most-watched game of the season in the timeslot. The ESPN CFB150 Showcase Game averaged 3,196,000 viewers, including a peak audience of 4.2 million viewers (3:45-3:56 p.m.). The 100th meeting between the schools resonated in the state, as Pittsburgh was the top market with 13.4 local rating followed by Ph
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
01/06/2026
Designed to solve a common problem in broadcasting, the automated workflow detects, identifies, removes, and documents copyrighted music
AudioShake has introdu...
01/06/2026
The sports-analytics company combines its data with proprietary AI to help leagu...
01/06/2026
Category line-up & sponsors announced
Photo: Paul Clarke
The Production Music Awards (PMA) have announced that submissions are now officially open ahead of...
01/06/2026
New hybrid sample/synthesis instrument revealed
Excite Audio have just released the latest instalment in their Evolve series, which has been developed in co...
01/06/2026
Latest TONEX expansion captures three rare vintage amps
The newest addition to IK Multimedia's ever-growing TONEX line-up introduces a set of three incr...
01/06/2026
Musically intelligent soft synth gets upgraded
Scaler Music will be probably be best known to many for their music theory tools, but their product range al...
01/06/2026
SBS confirms its broadcast sponsors for FIFA World Cup 2026
1 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS has secured Hyundai, Hisense, Macca's, Rexona, bet365, Com...
01/06/2026
Rohde & Schwarz Satellite Industry Days 2026 guided by the motto From Earth to ...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Marshall Electronics is showcasing a comprehensive lineup of next-generation POV cameras, purpose-built to power today's connected AV environments, at InfoC...
01/06/2026
Adobe Announces Concept to Vector
Deepa Subramaniam June 1, 2026
0 Comments
One of the biggest frustrations we hear from designers is how difficult it...
01/06/2026
Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton June 1, 2026
0 Comments
Colorist shapes dark, gritty tone for horror thri...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Mardi 2 juin 14h00
FilmLight (ARRI), 10 rue Ren Boulanger, 75010 Paris
Rejoignez-nous pour d couvrir comment FLAPI (l'API FilmLight) peut transformer e...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Pho...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
Ratings Roundup: Sunday Night Football Hits Lowest Ratings Valley in Week 2 Since 2007 By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor 
