ABC Dominates Monday Primetime With L.A. Rams Victory on ‘MNF’; CBS Slate Rises

The latest Monday primetime belonged to ABC, which swapped out its typical The Bachelor broadcast for the NFL playoff showdown between the Los Angeles Rams and Arizona Cardinals at SoFi Stadium.

Like Sunday Night Football‘s playoff game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers, Monday’s NFL game was the highest-rated and most-watched program of the evening, earning a 2.1 demo rating and 10.39 million viewers, per Nielsen fast affiliates. However, numbers may rise pending adjustment, as is the case with big live events. The game, which saw the Rams win 34-11, took up all of ABC’s primetime airtime.

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Elsewhere, all programs on CBS’ Monday slate rose from both the previous week, which featured reruns, and the last original telecast two weeks prior. CBS had the highest-rated and most-watched shows among non-sports titles with The Neighborhood (0.6, 5.62M) and NCIS (0.5, 6.99M), respectively. In the 8 p.m. hour, both Neighborhood and Bob Hearts Abishola (0.5, 5.29M) bested Kenan (0.4, 1.85M, with a repeat at 0.2,1.21M) and a repeat of 9-1-1-: Lone Star on Fox.

In the 9 p.m. hour, NCIS topped a new That’s My Jam (0.4, 1.86M), a repeat showing of The Cleaning Lady premiere and a new 4400 on The CW. 4400 (0. 1, 460,000) followed a repeat of Naomi’s series premiere and brought in the series’ second-largest audience of the season, following its premiere in October.

While NFL excitement continued on ABC well into the 10 p.m. hour, CBS and NBC wound things down with new episodes of NCIS: Hawai’i (0.4, 4.82M) and Ordinary Joe (0.2, 1.34M), respectively.

Tuesday primetime will see the script flip a bit with CBS airing repeats of its various FBI shows and competing networks touting new episodes.

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