NBC’s Sunday Night Football ended a strong 2009 campaign with one of its lowest-rated games of the season.
Sunday’s Bengals/Jets blowout drew a 10.0/16 final rating and 16.3 million viewers on NBC, up 11% and 10%, respectively, from a 9.0/15 and 14.8 million for Broncos/Chargers last year. Compared to Cowboys/Washington in Week 16 (10.9, 19.0 mil), Sunday’s telecast was down 8% and 14%, respectively.
Bengals/Jets stands as the third-lowest rated, third-least viewed Sunday Night Football telecast of the season, ahead of only Colts/Titans in Week 5 (9.7, 16.0 mil) and Cardinals/Giants in Week 7 (9.1, 15.0 mil).
Despite the declines, Sunday’s game finished as the #1 primetime program of the week in households, total viewers and among adults 18-49.
For the season, NBC averaged an 11.7/19 rating and 19.4 million viewers for Sunday Night Football, up 15% in ratings and 17% in viewership from last year (10.2, 16.6 mil), and up 17% and 21%, respectively, from 2007 (10.0, 16.0 mil).
This marks the highest rated, most-viewed NFL season on NBC since the network resumed airing games in ’06. Additionally, the 19.4 million viewers is a 19% increase over the 16.3 million ABC averaged for its final season of Monday Night Football in ’05.
Seven telecasts drew at least 20 million viewers on NBC, compared to just five in the previous three seasons combined. That includes Giants/Cowboys in Week 2 — which drew 24.8 million viewers, the most for a primetime regular season NFL telecast since ’97.
Overall, NBC averaged the highest rating for the NFL’s primetime broadcast package since 2000.
