The NFL’s strong viewership momentum slowed in Week 5, with just two windows delivering impressive viewership.
The first window was Fox’s national 4:25 PM game. Nearly the entire country got Cowboys-Rams, which averaged 24.250 million viewers. That’s down from last week’s late doubleheader on CBS (Patriots-Packers, 24.65 million), and up from last year’s on Fox (Cowboys-Giants, 22.05 million).
In the early half of the doubleheader, Fox averaged 12.766 million viewers for four games (Falcons-Bucs, Bears-Vikings, etc). That’s down from both last week’s early half on CBS (Bills-Ravens etc, 14.64 million) and last year’s on Fox (Packers-Bengals etc, 16.45 million).
For their singleheader, CBS averaged 14.696 million for a six-game slate, highlighted by Steelers-Bills. That’s down from both the singleheader last week on Fox (Commanders-Cowboys, Bears-Giants, etc, 15.33 million), and last year’s CBS singleheader (Dolphins-Bucs, Bears-Raiders, etc, 16.39 million viewers).
The Thursday Night Football rock fight between the Colts and Broncos on Amazon averaged a season-low 9.699 million viewers. Last week, Dolphins-Bengals averaged 11.72 million viewers, and last year, Rams-Seahawks averaged 14.76 million across both Fox and NFL Network.
We got a Bengals-Ravens Sunday Night Football game that drew 15.878 million viewers, which was down from both Chiefs-Bucs (20.85 million) and Bills-Chiefs last year (17.52 million viewers).
NFL Network also aired a London game in Week 5 between the Giants and Packers. 5.221 million viewers watched, up from last week’s London game (Vikings-Saints, 4.62 million) and last year’s London game (Jets-Falcons, 3.28 million).
Without an ABC simulcast or an ESPN2 ManningCast, Monday Night Football did well for ESPN. 15.787 million tuned in to Raiders-Chiefs, up from last week (Rams-49ers, 12.50 million with a ManningCast) and last year (Colts-Ravens, 11.33 million without a ManningCast).
[Data via ShowBuzz Daily, Sports Media Watch]
