For the second-straight week, and the sixth time in 12, ABC delivered the top audience in each of the major college football windows.
ABC delivered the top game in each of Saturday’s main college football windows, marking the second-straight week — and the sixth time in 12 weeks this season — that the network has accomplished the feat. Most, but not all, of those windows have been part of its “SEC on ABC” package.
Tennessee-Georgia led the way this weekend with an average of 9.96 million on ABC’s Saturday Night Football (including an ESPNU simulcast), marking the top college football audience of the weekend and an increase of 111% over Washington-Oregon State in the same window last year (4.73M).
The Bulldogs’ win, which peaked with 11.4 million viewers, delivered the fourth-largest Nielsen-measured audience of the college football season. Georgia has played in three of the top four, with their games against Texas (13.2M) and Alabama (12.0M) holding the top two spots. (Alabama-Tennessee ranks third with 10.2 million.)
ABC has now won the primetime Saturday window ten times in 12 tries this season.
Earlier in the day, LSU-Florida scored 6.02 million in the mid-afternoon window — up 128% from USC-UCLA last year (2.65M). The Gators’ win, which peaked with 7.7 million, also increased 5% from last year’s equivalent “SEC on CBS” window (Georgia-Tennessee: 5.73M).
As in primetime, ABC has now won the mid-afternoon window ten times in 12 weeks.
Finally, ABC drew 4.56 million for Texas-Arkansas in the Noon ET window — up from 58% from last year’s comparable Louisville-Miami game (2.89M).
The Longhorns’ win, which peaked with 5.7 million, helped ABC win the Noon ET window for a seventh time in 12 weeks — meaning that in most weeks this season, ABC has topped the FOX “Big Noon Saturday” window head-to-head. It should be noted that ABC regularly puts its weakest game telecast in the Noon ET window, while FOX typically schedules its biggest game of the week in that slot.
Overall, ABC has won three-quarters of the Saturday windows in which it has aired games (27 of 36). By comparison, FOX has won five windows (all at Noon), NBC three (one at 3:30 and two at 8:00) and CBS one (3:30).
In other week twelve action, ESPN bookended its quadrupleheader with 1.85 million for Clemson-Pittsburgh and 1.75 million for Kansas-BYU. The former game declined from Oklahoma-BYU last year (2.17M). In between, Boston College-SMU drew 957,000 and Arizona State-Kansas State 849,000, down 46 and 63 percent respectively from last year’s comparable windows (North Carolina-Clemson: 1.76M; Florida-Missouri: 2.27M).
Additional week twelve numbers will be added to this article when available.
