‘Sunday Night Football’ Ratings Return To Earth As Rams Beat Bears

Dino-Ray Ramos

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Sunday Night Football on NBC took a hit this week sans the Dallas Cowboys, with the Los Angeles Rams beating the Chicago Bears to keep their playoff hopes alive. In fast affiliate ratings that don’t include the West Coast — the game was played at the L.A. Coliseum — it drew a 4.3 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic and garnered 13.92 million viewers.

Last week, when the high-profile Cowboys played the Minnesota Vikings, SNF saw a 5.9 rating and nearly 20 million viewers in early numbers. Those metrics adjusted up to the finals to a 6.7 rating and 22.99 million, marking the 100th time over the past 10 years NBC’s flagship NFL series has topped 20 million.

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NFL preemptions also skewed CBS’ lineup Sunday, with 60 Minutes (3.3, 17.04M) significantly higher from last week to lead all non-sports programming. Also getting a boost was God Friended Me (1.0, 8.14M). Rounding out the night was NCIS: Los Angeles (0.7, 6.46M) and Madam Secretary (0.6, 5.93M), both also up. Expect adjustments in the finals later today.

On ABC, America’s Funniest Home Videos (0.8, 5.48M) was up a tenth while Kids Say the Darndest Things (0.6, 409M) slipped a tenth. Also down from last Sunday was Shark Tank (0.6, 3.31M) and The Rookie (0.5, 3.96M).

As for Fox’s Sunday animation block, it took some hits without an NFL lead-in. The Simpsons had a major dip (0.8, 2.11M) as did freshman Bless the Harts (0.6, 1.65M). Family Guy also ticked down (0.8, 1.89M), while Bob’s Burgers (0.8, 1.84M) was on par.

The CW flew into Sunday night and held steady with Supergirl (0.2, 801,000) and Batwoman (0.3, 1.16M).

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