It was not quite the matchup CBS would have hoped for at the start of the season, but Steelers/Seahawks still did well last weekend.
The Week 12 Steelers/Seahawks NFL national window drew a 15.4 final rating and 26.6 million viewers on CBS last Sunday, down 1% in ratings but up 1% in viewership from coverage featuring Dolphins/Broncos last year (15.5, 26.4M) and down 6% and 5%, respectively, from Cowboys/Giants on FOX in 2013 (16.4, 27.9M).
The Seahawks’ win had the second-highest NFL rating on CBS this season (29 telecasts including Thursday Night Football), behind only coverage featuring Patriots/Giants two weeks earlier (16.3). It also scored the network’s third-largest audience, behind Patriots/Giants (28.3M) and Panthers/Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day (32.5M).
The game outdrew NBC’s Patriots/Broncos Sunday Night Football game by 5% in ratings (15.4 to 14.6) and 6% in viewership (26.6M to 25.2M), but trailed SNF in the 18-49 demo (8.5 to 8.0). So far this season, the national window has topped SNF ten times in ratings, eleven times in viewership, but only five times in the demo.
The early doubleheader window had a mere 6.0 and 9.8 million, down 28% in ratings and 25% in viewership from last year (8.3, 13.0M) and down 33% and 34%, respectively, from coverage on FOX featuring Panthers/Dolphins in 2013 (8.9, 14.8M). The telecast ranks as the least-watched of the season on CBS, below even the network’s 9:30 AM Jets/Dolphins game from London in Week 4 (9.9). Overall, it scored the second-smallest NFL audience on a broadcast network this year and the fifth-smallest on any network.
(Sun. numbers via TV Media Insights, Sports Business Daily)
