After a run of ABC simulcasts fueled a banner year last season, ESPN’s Monday Night Football is struggling to keep up — even in a good week.
The latest edition of Monday Night Football (Ravens-Chargers) averaged a combined 9.2 rating and 17.32 million viewers across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, marking the third-largest MNF audience all season behind Buccaneers-Chiefs in Week 9 (20.6M) and Jets-49ers in Week 1 (20.4M).
The Ravens’ win, which peaked with 19.2 million viewers in the 10 PM ET quarter-hour, still declined 5% and 2% respectively from Bears-Vikings last year (9.7, 17.73M) — continuing a season-long trend. There have been nine MNF windows this season directly comparable to a year ago — seven that were simulcast on ABC and two that aired as part of an overlapping Week 3 doubleheader. All-but-one has declined, Buccaneers-Chiefs in Week 9 the lone exception.
(All other comparisons for MNF this season qualify as apples-to-oranges — cable-exclusive games in Weeks 2, 5 and 10 and doubleheaders in Weeks 4 and 7, all compared either to ABC simulcasts or to single games.)
Viewership of course still outpaces two years ago, when the bulk of the MNF schedule aired exclusively on cable. Ravens-Chargers, for example, soared 60% from Steelers-Colts on ESPN alone in 2022 (10.88M) and trails only last year as the most-watched Week 12 edition of the series since Patriots-Saints in 2009.
It also outdrew last year’s primetime matchup of the same two teams in the same week of the season, which drew 16.39 million on NBC’s Sunday Night Football — though the Chargers entered that game under .500 and there was no “Harbaugh bowl” angle.
In other Week 12 action, Sunday’s NFL national window (mostly 49ers-Packers) averaged a 12.2 and 25.19 million on FOX — down 20% and 18% respectively from coverage featuring Bills-Eagles on CBS last year, which aired over Thanksgiving weekend (15.2, 30.90M). Despite the decline (the third in the past four editions of “America’s Game of the Week” on FOX), the telecast ranks fifth for the season in Nielsen-measured viewership.
FOX says its “America’s Game of the Week” window is up 9% from last season and the most-watched since 2016, though that comes with the caveat that the network had an unopposed Week 1 doubleheader for the first time since 2020 (to say nothing of the addition of out-of-home viewership to Nielsen estimates the same year).
Earlier in the day, FOX drew 13.8 million for its early doubleheader window, down 15% from last year on CBS (Steelers-Bengals: 16.29M).
Shifting to the other afternoon window, CBS drew 15.6 million for singleheader coverage featuring the Chiefs’ narrow win over the lowly Panthers in 55% of markets — up 17% from last year on FOX (13.3M).
Rounding out the Week 12 action, NBC averaged an 8.9 and 17.36 million (19.0M including Adobe Analytics) for Eagles-Rams on Sunday Night Football — up 2, 6 and 8 percent respectively from last year’s previously-mentioned Ravens-Chargers game (8.7, 16.4M, 17.7M including Adobe).
