Kendall Milton Week 12 Nov 11, 2023; Athens, Georgia, USA; A Georgia Bulldogs running back Kendall Milton (2) breaks a long run against the Mississippi Rebels during the second half at Sanford Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

CBS Sports had Week 12’s most-watched college football game in its traditional 3:30 p.m. SEC slot.

5.729 million viewers watched Georgia’s win over Tennessee, both the week’s most-watched game and the best Week 12 window for CBS in four years.

ABC finished second in the window, averaging 2.65 million for UCLA’s win over USC. Surprisingly, third in the window went to the Big Ten Network, which averaged a record 2.02 million viewers for Ohio State-Minnesota. Fox ranked fourth for Oregon-Arizona State (1.90 million), with ESPN ranking fifth (North Carolina-Clemson, 1.76 million) and NBC ranking sixth (Wake Forest-Notre Dame, 1.48 million).

After a slow start to the year for CBS, its the third time in four weeks that the network has had the most-watched game of the week. The outlier came in Week 11, when Fox blew the doors off the competition for its broadcast of Michigan’s win over Penn State.

Fox claimed the noon window, with its broadcast of Michigan’s win over Maryland averaging 5.43 million viewers. It was followed up in the timeslot by ABC (Louisville-Miami, 2.89 million) and ESPN (Oklahoma-BYU, 2.17 million).

Primetime was ABC’s most-watched window of the day, with the network drawing 4.73 million viewers for Washington-Oregon State. Fox ranked second with 2.47 million for Texas-Iowa State, followed closely by NBC (Nebraska-Wisconsin, 2.45 million) and ESPN (Florida-Missouri, 2.27 million).

Also of note: The CW’s broadcast of Florida State’s win over North Alabama averaged a season-high 1.33 million viewers. The game kicked off at 6:30 p.m. ET.

As for Colorado, the viewership darling of the early part of this college football season, the Buffaloes got pounded by Washington State Friday night on FS1, and viewership hit a new low on a Nielsen-rated network. Just 727,000 viewers watched the game, which began at 10:30 p.m. ET. That ranked below WWE SmackDown on Fox, along with each game of an NBA doubleheader on ESPN. Prior to last week, late kickoffs and Friday kickoffs haven’t been able to stop Colorado. The team’s 10 p.m. ET kickoff in Week 3 against Colorado State on ESPN averaged 9.3 million viewers, while the school’s loss to Stanford on a Friday late night in Week 7 averaged 3.29 million viewers. In the late-night Saturday window back in Week 10, Colorado-Oregon State averaged 2.77 million viewers.

In Week 13, we’ve got some interesting weekday action in addition to the usual Saturday slate. The Egg Bowl takes place in primetime on ESPN Thanksgiving night. A more full than usual schedule on Black Friday is highlighted by the Oregon-Oregon State Civil War in primetime on Fox. Saturday is headlined by Fox’s Big Ten East decider between Michigan and Ohio State at noon ET, with the Iron Bowl taking place at 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS.

[Data via Sports Media Watch]

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.