In a season marked by declines, a 1% increase over last year’s season-low ratings is something to celebrate.
Green Bay/Washington earned a 10.8 final rating and 18.7 million viewers on the Week 11 edition of NBC’s Sunday Night Football, up a tick in ratings and 4% in viewership from Bengals/Cardinals last year (10.7, 18.0M), and up 13% and 10%, respectively, from Patriots/Colts in 2014 (12.4, 20.8M).
The game, which peaked at 20.7 million viewers from 9:15-9:30 PM ET, was the second-straight on NBC to post an increase in ratings and viewership. The network’s previous ten telecasts each declined. It also delivered the second-best figures for any primetime NFL game since Week 3.
Even with those mild superlatives, Sunday’s game was not a particularly strong draw. It was the seventh of NBC’s 12 telecasts thus far with less than an 11.0 rating or 19 million viewers, compared to just three of 19 windows all of last season.
In adults 18-49, Sunday’s game had a 6.2 rating — actually down a tick from last year (6.3) and down 13% from 2014 (7.1).
(Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 11/22, NBC Sports PR/Twitter 11/22)
