One of the uglier blowouts of the NFL season nonetheless delivered one of the top audiences of the season.
Last Sunday’s NFL national window (Steelers-Chiefs in 90% of markets) averaged an 11.6 rating and 24.16 million viewers on CBS, marking the tenth-largest audience of the season thus far. Kansas City has featured in three of the top ten games thus far, tying Green Bay as the second-most of any team (Dallas holds the top spot at four).
The telecast slipped 1% in ratings but jumped 9% in viewership from Week 16 lat year (mostly Rams-Seahawks: 11.7, 22.11M) and declined 19% and 5% respectively from 2019 (mostly Cowboys-Eagles: 14.2, 25.32M).
Steelers-Chiefs was the highest rated game of Week 16, but ranked a distant second in viewership behind the 28.59 million who watched Browns-Packers on FOX and NFL Network Christmas Day. Additional information on the NFL’s Christmas Day games is available here.
The first half of the CBS doubleheader (Bills-Patriots in 68% of markets) averaged a 7.6 (+1%) and 14.97 million (+11%), while the competing FOX singleheader (mostly Rams-Vikings or Giants-Eagles) pulled an 8.1 (-4%) and 16.53 million (+5%).
Shifting to primetime, NBC averaged an 8.5 and 17.28 million for Washington-Dallas on Sunday Night Football — the network’s lowest rated and least-watched game in four weeks. Ratings fell 14% and viewership 6% from last year (Titans-Packers: 9.9, 18.37M). Compared to 2019 (Chiefs-Bears), ratings fell 12% (from 9.7) but viewership increased 1% (from 17.03M).
ESPN’s Monday Night Football (Dolphins-Saints) chipped in 12.31 million, the smallest Week 16 MNF audience since Broncos-Raiders on Christmas Eve three years ago (8.60M). Viewership fell 15% from Bills-Patriots last year, which aired on both ESPN and ABC (14.45), and 9% from Packers-Vikings in ’19 (13.57M).
Keep in mind Week 16 used to mark the season finale of Monday Night Football. With the expansion of the NFL schedule to eighteen weeks and ESPN owning rights to a doubleheader on the final Saturday of the season, the network has three more games remaining on schedule.
Finally, Thursday Night Football wrapped up its season averaging 16.4 million viewers for its simulcasts on FOX and Amazon Prime — up 16% from last year (14.1M), up 6% from 2019, and the highest average for the package since 2015 (17.7M). The last of those simulcasts was the previously-mentioned Browns-Packers game on Christmas Day.
The eight exclusive NFL Network games were also the most-watched since 2015, though an exact average was not immediately available. NFL Network finished its exclusive slate with a 4.2 and 7.90 million for 49ers-Titans on December 23 and a previously-reported 5.3 and 12.62 million for Colts-Cardinals on Christmas.
NFL games are now averaging 16.8 million viewers across TV and digital platforms, up 8% from last year. Notably, that average includes a revised figure for Raiders-Cowboys on CBS Thanksgiving Day. The NFL is now estimating a whopping 40.8 million viewers for that game — 41.3 million including additional streaming data not tracked by Nielsen — the largest figure for a regular season NFL game since 1990 (Giants-49ers: 41.5M).
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz, league PR]
