Ratings Roundup: NFL Week 2 Concludes With Bears-Seahawks in Chicago; Pair of Nationally-Ranked Teams Square Off in College Football

Ratings Roundup: NFL Week 2 Concludes With Bears-Seahawks in Chicago; Pair of Nationally-Ranked Teams Square Off in College Football By Kristian Hernandez, Assistant Editor

Thursday, September 20, 2018 - 8:00 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, the Chicago Bears hosted the Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night Football, CBS and NBC notched another week of NFL action, Ohio State-TCU and LSU-Auburn headlined Saturday's college football slate on ESPN and CBS, Ravens-Bengals take over Thursday Night Football on NFL Network, the Seattle Storm clinched the WNBA Championship, and IndyCar's championship race of the Grand Prix of Sonoma aired on NBC Sports.

Chicago Defeats Seattle in MNF Matchup

The Week 2 Monday Night Football game - a Chicago Bears 24-17 victory over the Seattle Seahawks - helped ESPN win the night among all networks (broadcast or cable) in households, viewers and all key male and adult demos (18-34, 18-49 and 25-54). This marks the second straight Monday that ESPN has won the night in all categories.

Yesterday's MNF game also ranked as the No. 1 telecast of the night (out-delivering the Emmy Awards) among households, viewers and all key male and adult demos.

Seahawks-Bears delivered a total live audience (TV Streaming) of 11.8 million average viewers across ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes.

On ESPN, the Seahawks-Bears game averaged a 7.0 US household rating and 11,720,000 viewers. The game peaked during the 9:15-9:30 p.m. quarter hour with a 7.9 US household rating and 13,377,000 viewers on ESPN

On ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes, Seahawks-Bears averaged 129,000 viewers.

Local markets:

In Seattle, the game delivered a 9.8 rating on ESPN and a 21.3 rating on KIRO-CBS, for a combined 31.1 rating in the market.

In Chicago, the game delivered an 8.8 rating on ESPN and a 20.3 on WLS-ABC, for a combined 29.1 rating in the market.

The top metered markets (not including those of the competing teams): New Orleans (15.2), Denver (10.8), Kansas City (10.5), Raleigh-Durham (10.5), Columbus (10.4), Minneapolis (10.3), Las Vegas (10.2), Washington, DC (10.2), Portland, Ore. (9.8), and Buffalo/Philadelphia (9.5).

Week 2 of The NFL on CBS and NBC Sunday Night Football

CBS Sports' Week 2 coverage of The NFL on CBS on Sunday scored its best opening NFL doubleheader game rating in three years and was the highest-rated game of the day on any network earning an average overnight household rating/share of 14.0/28, up 1% from last year (13.8/27) in the metered markets.

The day's coverage was highlighted by the national 4:25 PM, ET game window featuring the AFC Championship rematch of New England-Jacksonville and Oakland-Denver.

For the second week in a row, CBS' NFL pregame show, The NFL Today, earned a double-digit ratings increase, up 14%, with a rating/share of 2.5/7 vs. last year (2.2/6) in the metered markets.

According to Cynopsis Sports, the New York Giants vs. Dallas Cowboys nightcap on NBC's Sunday Night Football ranked as the day's top primetime show with a 13.8/24 in overnight - up 10% from last year's Week 2 score and marking the best Week 2 overnight for the telecast since 2015.

Buckeyes vs. Horned Frogs/Battle of the Tigers Highlight College Football Schedule

College football's week 3 delivered banner results for ABC and ESPN, as the networks combined to be up 27% year-over-year on Saturday and ABC's Saturday Night Football aired the most-watched game of the season on any network. ABC's primetime success capped a tripleheader which saw audience gains in each of its game windows and coincided with ESPN's prime-time telecast which was the second most-watched primetime game on any network. During the two prime-time games, ESPN and ABC's audience peaked at 11,186,000 (9:30-9:45 p.m.ET) and throughout the course of eleven hours of game time (noon-11 p.m. ET), on average, 7.5 million fans were tuning into college football on ABC/ESPN's networks at any given minute.

ABC's Saturday Night Football featuring Ohio State vs. TCU (8 p.m. ET) was the most-watched game of the season on any network, delivering a total live audience of 7,328,000 viewers. The telecast was ABC's most-watched regular season game in more than a calendar year (Oklahoma at Ohio State on Sept. 9, 2017) and up 41% from last season's week 3 SNF game.

Buoyed by the Big Ten-Big 12 clash, ABC went on to win the night' among households, viewers and all key male and female adult demos, beating all broadcast and cable competition - including networks not airing sporting events. Three weeks into the season, ABC/ESPN have beat the sport and non-sport competition four different nights, resulting in each network winning the night' on two different occasions.

Additional Buckeye-Horned Frog Superlatives:

Among September's Best: The more than 7.3 million viewers is the fourth highest for a September, non-opening week SNF game in the last 10 years.

Barrage of Points Peaks Audience: ABC's audience peaked at 8,700,000 viewers in the midst of a 34 point third quarter (10:30 - 11 p.m.)

Prime-time Champions: ABC's audience topped its broadcast competition by 148% in primetime.

Prime-time success extended to ESPN, as Alabama at Ole Miss (7 p.m.) delivered a Nielsen total live audience of 4,109,000 viewers, the second most-watched prime-time game in week 3. The audience for the Crimson Tide's victory beat the broadcast competition by 39% and was up 64% year-over year from last season's same game window on ESPN.

ABC's success began early in the day as Oklahoma at Iowa State (noon) garnered a total live audience of 3,434,000 viewers and BYU at Wisconsin (3:30 p.m.) deliv

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