Depending on the comparison, the AFC Championship was either an up or down affair on CBS.
Steelers/Patriots earned a 24.4 final rating and 48.0 million viewers in Sunday’s AFC Championship Game on CBS, up 1% in ratings and 5% in viewership from last year’s Cardinals/Panthers NFC title game on FOX (24.1, 45.7M) and up 8% and 14% respectively from Colts/Patriots on CBS in 2015 (22.5, 42.1M).
Compared to last year’s Patriots/Broncos AFC Championship, which aired in the afternoon window, ratings fell 17% from a 29.3 and viewership 10% from 53.3 million.
The Patriots’ blowout win ranks as the highest rated and most-watched primetime conference championship game since 49ers/Seahawks on FOX in 2014 (28.5, 55.9M). Yet it was also the third-lowest rated in the window since 2009, and the second-lowest rated AFC Championship in any window over that same span.
While Sunday’s game earned a larger audience than the preceding NFC Championship on FOX (46.3M), the NFC game had a higher rating (25.0) — marking the third straight year that the early conference championship game has outrated the primetime window.
In addition, for the first time since the current playoff scheduling format began in 2002, neither conference championship game ranked as the highest rated or most-watched NFL game prior to the Super Bowl. That distinction still belongs to Packers/Cowboys in the Divisional Round, which had a 26.1 and 48.5 million.
(Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 1/24)
