Ratings Roundup: Bills-Chiefs Fuels Most Watched AFC Championship on Record; Wemby's Homecoming Creates Most-Watched NBA Game in France By SVG Staff
Friday, January 31, 2025 - 11:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, another Bills vs. Chiefs matchup in the postseason becomes the most-watched AFC title game on record, NBA Paris delivers most-watched NBA game ever in France, and more.
Bills-Chiefs Named Most-Watched AFC Championship on Record According to SportsMediaWatch, Sunday's Bills-Chiefs AFC Championship Game averaged 57.7 million viewers on CBS, marking the largest audience on record for an AFC title game (dating back to 1988) and the most-watched conference championship overall since Vikings-Saints on FOX in 2010 (57.9M). Going back further, the only other conference title game with a larger recorded audience was Cowboys-49ers in 1982, which was said to have averaged 68.7 million in an era before Nielsen people meters.
The Chiefs' win, which peaked with more than 62 million viewers from 9:30 PM ET through the conclusion, increased 4% from last year's Chiefs-Ravens AFC title game, which aired in the early window (55.5M). Viewership also increased 2% from Lions-49ers on FOX in the same late window last year (56.3M).
Commanders-Eagles Hits Low for Down Year in the NFC According to SportsMediaWatch, Sunday's Commanders-Eagles NFC Championship Game averaged 44.2 million viewers across the Fox Sports family of networks, marking the least-watched NFL conference title game since Bills-Chiefs on CBS in 2021 (42.8M) and the least-watched NFC title game since Packers-49ers in 2020, the last year before Nielsen began including out-of-home data in its viewership estimates (42.5M on FOX, 43.9M across all Fox platforms).
The Eagles' easy win, which peaked with 50.4 million viewers in the 5:30 PM ET quarter-hour, declined more than 20% from both of last year's title games - Lions-49ers in the NFC, which aired in the late window (56.3M) and Chiefs-Ravens in the AFC, which aired in the early window on CBS (55.5M).
From FOX Sports perspective, this game was the most-watched telecast since last year's NFC title game.
NBA Paris Delivers Most-Watched NBA Game Ever in France The NBA Paris Game 2025, which featured the Indiana Pacers and the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday, Jan. 23, set several records across television viewership and digital and social media engagement. Highlights include:
The most-watched regular-season NBA game ever on television in France. NBA League Pass viewership was up 41% in France and 19% globally vs. last year's Paris Game.
The most-viewed NBA Global Game ever on the league's social media accounts (218M+ views) across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X and YouTube.
Content featuring Victor Wembanyama in Paris this week has propelled him to become the second most-viewed NBA player across the league's social media accounts this season (817M+ views). This week alone, content featuring Wembanyama has generated more than 108M views, including a video of him juggling a ball on the Paris Saint-Germain pitch on Wednesday, Jan. 22 that has garnered more than 39M views on Instagram, making it the fifth most-viewed post on the NBA's Instagram account this season.
Madison Keys Delivers Three Year High for Aussie Open Women's Final, But Tourney Down Overall Saturday's Madison Keys-Aryna Sabalenka Australian Open women's final averaged 452,000 viewers on ESPN, up 34% from last year (Aryna Sabalenka-Qinwen Zheng: 388K) and the most-watched women's final of the tournament since 2022, the previous year it featured an American (Ashleigh Barty-Danielle Collins: 482K). The women's semifinals - Keys-Iga Swiatek and Sabalenka-Paula Badosa - averaged 357,000, up 13% from last year and the most-watched since 2021. (SMW)
However, the men's and women's coverage of the Australian Open overall was down 11% overall compared to last year, averaging 235,000 viewers on ESPN and ESPN2. The later rounds-from the quarterfinals to the championship-averaged 295,000 viewers, down 20% versus last year. (FOS)
Unrivaled Sees Expected Dip in Week 2 According to SportsMediaWatch, the new women's basketball league Unrivaled is averaging 194,000 viewers across TNT and truTV through two weeks, with that average rising to 238,000 when truTV-exclusive games are excluded.
Coverage on Monday night averaged 166,000 on TNT/truTV (Laces-Rose: 192K; Lunar Owls/Vinyl: 134K), down 10% from the prior Monday window - which had a lead-in from an NBA Martin Luther King Day doubleheader, but also faced tougher competition from the CFP National Championship and Inauguration Day (184K).
SportsCenter & Scott Van Pelt Score Big in January In January, the 2 p.m. ET edition of SportsCenter was the most-viewed month of all-time with an average of 443,000 viewers and up 22% year-over-year. As for the 11 p.m. ET edition, the show was the fourth most-viewed and had its best month since May 2023. This was achieved with an average of 994,000 viewers and up 126% year-over-year.
SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt had an average of 1.5 million viewers in the last month, which was the show's highest month on average since December 2017 and up 37% from last January. This ranks 7 out of 12 shows to average 1.6 million or more.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Ratings Roundup: Bills-Chiefs Fuels Most Watched AFC Championship on Record; Wemby's Homecoming Creates Most-Watched NBA Game in France By SVG Staff 
