For just the fifth time this season, ratings declined for the NFL’s national window.
NFL action featuring Giants/Packers in 90% of TV markets earned a 13.6 final rating and 24.3 million viewers on FOX Sunday afternoon, down 17% in ratings and 14% in viewership from Week 16 last year (DEN/PHI: 16.3, 28.240 mil, CBS), but up 15% and 27%, respectively, from Week 16 in ’08 (ATL/MIN: 11.8, 19.210 mil, FOX).
This marks the third-lowest rated, sixth-least viewed NFL national window of the season (16 telecasts).
Additionally, this is only the second time this season that the national window has suffered a double-digit decline in either ratings or viewership.
Sunday’s telecast was the television’s top program of the week (Dec. 20-26). An NFL telecast has been the top program of the week during all sixteen weeks of the NFL season, with national window in particular taking top honors fourteen times.
According to the NFL, the national window was the week’s top program in six markets — Milwaukee (NYG/GB: 40.2), Philadelphia (NYG/GB: 23.9), New Orleans (NYG/GB: 23.3), Seattle (SEA/TB: 21.2), Charlotte (NYG/GB: 18.4), Atlanta (NYG/GB: 16.7) — and was tied as the top program in Tampa-St. Petersburg (NYG/GB: 14.8).
(Sitcoms Online; NFL press release from TV By The Numbers)
