American Music Awards Ratings Hit All-Time Low, ‘Sunday Night Football’ Falls
There were digs at Donald Trump, honors for Prince and big wins for Ariana Grande, Drake and Rhinana on ABC’s American Music Awards (2.4/7) last night. There also was a hard loss for the Green Bay Packers as the Washington Redskins won 42-24 on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Both shows were tackled for losses ratigswise.
In a season that has seen the NFL struggle to gain ratings traction, SNF scored an 11.9/19 in metered market results last night. That’s down a solid 17% in the time-adjusted ratings from last week’s down-to-the-wire Seattle Seahawks win over the New England Patriots. Now granted, a big Washington win is a lot less dramatic that the yard-by-yard fight of the November 14 matchup, and last night’s teams don’t have the national pull of the Patriots and Seahawks. Plus, even with last night’s SNF’s metered market results coming in as the second-best this season since the big-market Dallas Cowboys and the Chicago Bears faced off September 25, there was an almost full night of competition over on ABC.
While facing a lot less SNF competition than last year, the 2016 AMAs fell 31% from 2015 among adults 18-49 and 26% among viewers, to 8.2 million watching last night. Though pushing ABC to a Sunday season high, that fast affiliate result is actually the worst the Dick Clark Productions show has ever done, election year or otherwise. Nielsen started electronically tracking AMA ratings in 1992 — when another Clinton won the White House.
In fast affiliates, SNF drew a 5.6/16 between 8:30-11 PM and 16.91 million viewers. That’s a decline of 14% from last week’s early-unadjusted numbers in the key demo. The Seahawks-Patriots game, which faced the first sit-down interview with President-elect Donald Trump over on 60 Minutes, went up to 7.7/24 rating with 22.51 million watching.
As it is, NBC easily won last night with a 4.7/14 rating and 14.42 million viewers. ABC was second with a 2.2/7 and 12.11 million watching.
As is common, CBS’ primetime was delayed last night – 46 minutes to be precise — so everything is tentative ratingswise on the House of Moonves. With that said, 60 Minutes pulled in a 2.1 rating, NCIS: Los Angeles got a 1.3, Madam Secretary had 0.8 and, out of primetime at 11 PM, Elementary snared a 0.7. With the exception of the contemporary Sherlock Holmes series, all of CBS’ shows featured 14 minutes in the East Coast and Central time zones of what would be their lead-out.
With no Son Of Zorn, Fox had a double dose of Bob’s Burgers last night at 7:30 PM (1.0/3) and 8:30 PM (1.2/4). That’s even with the animated comedy’s last original of November 6 in its 7:30 PM slot, and up from Zorn‘s non-NFL-inflated average in the 8:30 period. Otherwise, a new The Simpsons (1.3/4), Family Guy (1.3/4) and The Last Man On Earth (0.9/3) were in line with their last non-NFL inflated demo results.
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