‘Thursday Night Football’ Ratings Match Season Low As 49ers Remain Unbeaten

Dominic Patten

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For a while on Halloween night it was looking like the good times might end for the unbeaten San Francisco 49ers as they took a hit or two from the Arizona Cardinals on Thursday Night Football. But the Bay Area team hung on for a 25-23 victory to remain steady, as did the ratings for the NFL and Fox.

The matchup snagged a 2.8/14 fast-affiliate rating in the adults 18-49 demographic and 10.19 million viewers Thursday in a trick-or-treat primetime costumed with encores on CBS and originals like a declining Grey’s Anatomy and The Good Place elsewhere. Overall, pretty much everything stayed the same as TNF matched its season low of last week in the key demo and saw bop up of just less than 3% in total audience.

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Those numbers will likely change in the final adjusted numbers as they almost always do for live sports and awards shows.

With that, compared with the early ratings of the comparable TNF game of last year, where the 49ers ripped the heart out of the Oakland Raiders 34-3, last night’s gridiron face-off was up a strong 38% in viewership and 33% among 18-49s. Last week’s TNF ended up with a 3.9/18 rating and 13.48 million tuning in, which is perhaps where last night’s game will settle as well.

Elsewhere in broadcast primetime, that fresh Grey’s Anatomy (1.1 rating in adults 18-49, 5.69 million viewers) was the night’s highest-rated and most-watched entertainment program, though it dipped in viewers and by two tenths in the demo compared with last week’s final numbers likely thanks to Halloween duties.

Other notable included the second week of the final season of NBC’s Will & Grace (0.6, 2.62M), which ticked up in both metrics compared with last week’s finals, as did The Good Place (0.7, 2.28M) and Perfect Harmony (0.4, 2.01M). As we said, CBS took the night off from originals, while the CW’s special 13 Scariest Movies of All Time (0.2, 970,000) led into the season finale of Mysteries Decoded (0.1, 600K).

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