Ratings Roundup: Possible AFC Championship Matchup on SNF a Hit for NBC; Warriors-Lakers Post Highest-Rated Preseason Telecast Ever By Kristian Hernandez, Assistant Editor Thursday, October 18, 2018 - 11:11 am
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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, a 12.3 rating on Sunday Night Football highlights the latest week in the NFL, the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers headlines the most watched preseason telecast ever, Michigan's defeat over Wisconsin spearheads college football's Week 7, both AL and NL Championship Series start slowly, Top Rank boxing takes to the airwaves on ESPN, and Univision showcases an international soccer doubleheader featuring the United States and Mexico.
NFL Ratings Remain Even in Week 6
The New England Patriots' down-to-the-wire 43-40 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday Night Football, which featured a quarterback duel between Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes, and seven scoring plays in the final 16 minutes, averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 21.5 million viewers across NBC TV, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL Digital platforms - up 32% from last year's Week 6 game (16.3 million) and marking the fifth consecutive SNF game with a viewership increase vs. 2017, according to official national live same day data released by Nielsen, and digital data from Adobe Analytics.
For the season, NBC Sunday Night Football is averaging a TAD of 20.2 million viewers - up 5% from last year (19.3 million), and the highest figure through Week 6 since SNF's record 2015 season.
Sunday night's Chiefs-Patriots game - which tied for the highest-scoring in NBC SNF history (83 points) - delivered NBC's highest peak viewership of the season, as the final quarter hour (11:15-11:29 p.m. ET) registered 23.7 million viewers.
With an average of 21.1 million NBC TV viewers, Kansas City-New England topped by 37% the combined Sunday primetime viewership on the other broadcast networks (15.4 million on ABC, CBS, and Fox).
Football Night in America averaged 8.4 million viewers on Sunday night, an advantage of 38% over Game 2 of the ALCS (Astros-Red Sox, TBS) from 7:30-8:15 p.m. ET, and up 10% vs. last year. It was also the best Week 6 delivery for FNIA in six years (8.9 million in 2012). For the season, FNIA is averaging 7.3 million viewers - up 8% from the comparable 7:30-8:15 p.m. ET time window through last year at this point.
The Average Minute Audience (AMA) for Sunday night's live stream via NBC Sports Digital and NFL Digital platforms was 434,000 viewers - NBC Sports Digital's best-ever for an authenticated regular-season Sunday night game and more than tripling last year's Week 6 game (136,000 for Giants-Broncos). Fans consumed 84.7 million live streaming minutes across 2.0 million unique devices, up 187% and 289%, respectively, from last year's Week 6 game.
For the season, NBC Sports Digital's AMA of 379,000 viewers is up 74% from last year through Week 6 (218,000).
Sunday's game (8:23 p.m.-11:29 p.m. ET) registered a national TV household rating of 12.3/22.
Top metered markets include: Kansas City 49.6/67, Boston 34.3/51, Providence 31.1/48, New Orleans 21.7/30, Denver 19.5/32, Norfolk 16.8/27, Richmond 16.8/26, Greensboro 16.6/27, Dallas 16.3/27, and Pittsburgh 16.3/25
On Fox, metered market ratings for the Sunday afternoon delivered an 11.7/25, up 18% over last year's comparable weekend (vs. 9.9/21)
The Week 6 NFL national window, featuring Jaguars-Cowboys in 85% of markets, had a 10.2 rating and 17.64 million viewers on CBS - down 15% in ratings and 14% in viewership from last year (mostly Steelers-Chiefs: 12.0, 20.6M) and down 35% and 37% respectively from 2016 on Fox (mostly Cowboys-Packers: 15.8, 28.0M). CBS also drew a 7.0 and 11.5 million for the first half of its doubleheader - up 6% in ratings and 5% in viewership from last year (6.6, 10.9M) but down 9% and 13% respectively from 2016 on Fox (ft. Philadelphia-Washington: 7.7, 13.2M) (SportsMediaWatch)
The Monday Night Football matchup (8:15-11:30 p.m. ET) - a Green Bay Packers' last-second 33-30 victory over the San Francisco 49ers - averaged 12 million viewers across ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes. This is an increase of 40% vs. last year's Colts-Titans week 6 game, which averaged 8.5 million viewers across the three ESPN networks.
ESPN won the night again among all networks, broadcast or cable, in households, viewers and all key male and adult demos (18-34, 18-49, 25-54). 49ers-Packers also helped ESPN become the most-watched network (broadcast or cable) in prime time among those same categories. Through the first six weeks of the NFL season (seven games), MNF has helped ESPN win the night all six Mondays.
Season to-date, Monday Night Football is averaging 11.5 million viewers, up 3%from last year's average among total viewers (11.2 million) - and up s7% from last year's full-season average (10.8 million).
On ESPN, 49ers-Packers averaged a 7.2 US household rating and 11.8 million viewers - an increase of 41% compared to 8.4 million viewers in week 6 last year, making it the best single-game increase across all NFL networks in 2018. The telecast peaked from 11:15-11:30 p.m. ET with an 8.9 US household rating and 14.6 million viewers.
On ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes, 49ers-Packers averaged an additional 128,000 viewers.
n San Francisco, the game delivered a 5.9 rating on ESPN and an 11.0 rating on KGO-ABC, for a combined 16.9 rating in the market. In Milwaukee, the game delivered a 6.9 rating on ESPN and a 26.8 rating on WISN-ABC, for a combined 33.7 rating in the market.
The top metered markets (not including those of the competing teams): Sacramento (14.9),
