‘Sunday Night Football’ Ratings Steady With Season Low As Raiders Win
At the halfway point now in the NFL season, the much traveled Oakland Raiders pulled off a Sunday Night Football win against the Miami Dolphins as yet again protests stole much of the game’s thunder. The Raiders’ Week 9 27-24 victory saw the Dolphins’ Michael Thomas, Julius Thomas and wide receiver Kenny Stills kneel during the national anthem.
That’s the first such protest by players for the Florida franchise since the team’s coach instituted a rule against such displays. It is also the first game for the Dolphins since their owner and the players put together an annual fund for “advocacy and social justice programs” on November 4. On yet another Sunday of big games and Daylight Savings Time catch ups, the SNF protests last night came as ratings for the league are down 5% from the numbers stumbles of last season and nearly 19% from a similar point in the 2015-2016 season.
Pulling focus to last night’s sometimes fog drenched SNF, the NBC broadcast game snared a 9.6/16 in metered market results.
Up a scant 2%, that’s pretty steady with last week’s SNF season low when the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Detroit Lions and SNF faced a very dramatic Game 5 of the 2017 World Series. That 8:30 – 11:30 PM ET game result went on to draw an NFL tepid 4.8/15 among adults 18-49 and 13.86 million viewers. Even with a season of ratings slides, that was a rare loss of a Sunday for the NFL and the Comcast-owned net to the 5.3/17 and 18.94 million that the baseball game and Fox scored.
Year-to-year, last night’s Raiders vs. Dolphins battle declined 18% from the early numbers of the comparable game of last year, which Oakland won.
Back on November 6, 2016, the Raiders solidly took down the Denver Broncos 30-20 at home in the Bay Area on SNF. Also no longer facing a World Series, that Week 9 game of last year eventually ended up with a 6.6/20 rating and 18.33 million viewers. That result was the best SNF had done after several weeks of ratings tackles.
In non-time adjusted fast affiliates, last night’s SNF delivered a season low 4.0/14 among adults 18-49 and 11.67 million viewers. That’s a tumble of 7% in the demo and 1 million from the fast affiliates of the October 29 SNF of the Steelers vs. the Lions and up against Game 5 of the World Series. Right now, NBC is winning the night with a 3.6/12 and an audience of 10.73 million
Lacking the double dose of sports competition, most of the rest of the Big 4 were pretty steady last night, kind of.
With its primetime pushed back 30 minutes due to NFL overruns, CBS saw a 7:30 PM ET starting 60 Minutes (2.4/8) inflated up 60% over last week’s basically football-less Sunday. Wisdom of the Crowd (1.1/4), NCIS: Los Angeles (0.9/3) and Madam Secretary (0.7/3) bopped up 36%, 12% and 17% with the NFL’s help. All of those numbers will likely be adjusted in the final numbers.
For you gridiron fans, that Dallas Cowboys’ late afternoon win over the Kansa City Chiefs handed the House of Moonves a 14.2/26 metered market result. A result that is up 11% over the Week 9 game of 2016 and the best national game MM rating for the net this season.
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Due to a few NFL overruns in a few Fox markets, Bob’s Burgers (1.6/6) saw a 23% rise from its last original of October 22, before the World Series began. Otherwise, Ghosted (1.0/4), The Last Man on Earth (0.8/3) and The Simpsons (1.3/5) were even with their last new shows. On the other hand, Family Guy (1.0/3) was down two tenths from its last original of late last month.
ABC saw The Toy Box (0.4/2), America’s Funniest Home Videos (0.9/3) and the 9 PM Shark Tank (0.9/3) were all even with last week’s fast affiliates. The 10 PM Shark Tank (0.7/3), which took over recently for the now terminated Ten Days in the Valley, fell 22% in the key demo.
BTW, here are the SNF local markets MM numbers:
Sacramento – 16.1/27
New Orleans – 16.1/22
San Francisco – 14.3/27
Buffalo – 14.2/22
Richmond- 13.9/21
Miami – 13.6/24
Denver – 13.2/23
Albuquerque – 13.1/20
Las Vegas- 12.7/20
West Palm Beach – 12.5/20
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