Like rival FOX, CBS got off to a poor start in the new NFL season.
The Week 1 NFL singleheader had a 7.6 rating and 13.3 million viewers on CBS Sunday, down 18% in ratings and 17% in viewership from last year (9.3, 16.0M) and down 34% in both measures from 2015 on FOX (11.6, 20.1M). Less than a quarter of markets received the Raiders-Titans game, which marked Tony Romo‘s debut as the lead NFL on CBS game analyst.
Sunday’s telecast was the lowest rated and least-watched Week 1 singleheader window in eight years, since CBS pulled a 7.1 and 11.4 million in 2009.
All three afternoon windows hit multi-year lows Sunday, with both games of the FOX doubleheader the lowest rated or least-watched in at least nine years.
News coverage of Hurricane Irma may have played a role. The Weather Channel alone averaged 4.3 million viewers from 1-8 PM ET Sunday (on the comparable day last year, the network’s top hour had 284,000).
[Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 9.13]
