NFL Week 3 ratings recap: Thursday Night Football up; SNF remains strong; Sunday afternoon down

NFL Week 3 will be remembered for some really bad games especially on Thursday night, late Sunday afternoon, Sunday night and Monday night. The bad games resulted in a mixed bag for the broadcast partners, increased ratings in primetime on Thursday and Sunday night, decreased numbers on Sunday afternoon.

Let’s take a look at how the networks fared in Week 3.

CBS/NFL NETWORK

After last year’s Week 3 game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Tampa Bay Bucs which finished with a combined 7.5 rating and just under 12 million viewers, there was nowhere to go but up for last Thursday’s Washington-New York Giants game. And as the Giants won, so did CBS and NFL Network. The combined rating for the networks was 10.5, a 40% increase from last year’s game. And the viewership on CBS/NFL Network was 16.9 million viewers, up 42% from Bucs-Falcons.

Through two games, Thursday Night Football is averaging an 11.8 rating and 19.2 million viewers, up 19% and 20% respectively from last season.

CBS

CBS aired two games in the national window on Sunday afternoon, Buffalo at Miami and Chicago at Seattle (yes an NFC game!), but both turned out to be huge blowouts. As a result, CBS saw a double digit drop from last year’s Week 3 games. Bears-Seahawks was sent to ¾ of the country while Bills-Dolphins was seen mainly on the East Coast.

CBS received a 12.9 rating and a viewership of 22.1 million. That is down significantly from last year’s 15.8 and 27.3 million viewers for the window that featured Denver at Seattle.

Both of CBS’ late windows this season have experienced double-digit drops as compared to last season.

ESPN

Monday Night Football had Kansas City at Green Bay as its matchup. The Worldwide Leader experienced a small downturn from last year. Chiefs-Packers averaged an 8.3 rating, down a tick from Jets-Bears’ 8.4 in 2014. Viewership for KC-GB was an average 13.5 million peaking in the 9:30 – 9:45 p.m. ET quarter-hour with a 10.4 rating and 17.05 million viewers. This year’s viewership number was up from last year’s 13.26 million.

Locally, the game dominated in both home markets:

In Kansas City, the game delivered a 10.6 rating on ESPN and a 19.4 on KMBC-ABC, for a combined 30.0 rating in the market. In Milwaukee, the game delivered a 13.1 rating on ESPN and a 34.5 on WISN-ABC, for a combined 47.6 rating in the market.

The top 10 metered markets (not including those of the competing teams): Las Vegas (15.1), Denver (14.4), San Diego (13.3), New Orleans (13.1), West Palm Beach (11.7), Raleigh-Durham (11.7), Norfolk (11.4), Jacksonville (11.2), Phoenix (11.1), and (tied) Albuquerque, Seattle and Sacramento (10.8).

ESPN says Monday Night Football won the night across all programs on both broadcast and cable.

FOX

Fox featured the Atlanta Falcons at Dallas Cowboys as its 1 p.m. ET game, but despite having America’s Team, the network experienced a small drop from 2014. The NFL on Fox averaged an overnight rating of 11.9 for the four games played in the early window. That’s off 2% from last year’s 12.2 and is the lowest for a Fox regional window since 2008. One silver lining is that the rating is the highest for an early regional window this season.

NBC

Sunday Night Football had Denver at Detroit, NBC’s first regular season excursion to the Motor City since obtaining the package in 2006. And it registered a very strong 13.1 rating and 22 share, up 10% from last year’s Carolina-Pittsburgh contest which averaged an 11.9/20.

Viewership for Broncos-Lions was 22.1 million viewers, 12% better than Steelers-Panthers.

Sunday Night Football is averaging 25.6 million viewers through the first three weeks of the season, the best viewership for the NFL’s premier primetime package since 1994 when ABC had 25.9 million for Monday Night Football.

Denver and Detroit were the top two local markets for the game. Here’s the Top 10 local ratings for Broncos-Lions:

Hopefully, the quality of games will be better in Week 4. After a harsh Week 3, we will have deserved it.

[Sports Media Watch 1, 2, 3/ESPN/NBC]