Primetime Ratings: ‘Sunday Night Football’ Down But NBC Wins

It being autumn in America and all, football ruled the night. Sunday Night Football did a 5.1 on NBC, down 12% from last week, leading out of a 3.2 Football Night in America. (The pre-game did a 3.1 last week.) With the Seattle Seahawks crushing the Carolina Panthers, the blowout nature of the game did not help ratings.

NBC won easily at 4.7 in adults 18-49, per Nielsen’s overnights, and a 14 share, ahead of Fox’s football-fueled 2.7/8, CBS’ 1.0/3 and ABC’s 0.8/2.

Fox had an NFL overrun setting up The OT at 4.1. The Simpsons did a 2.4, up from last week’s 1.3, while Son of Zorn was down 19% from its last new airing three weeks ago at 1.3. Family Guy grew 23% to 1.6, while Last Man on Earth climbed 22% to 1.1.  

On CBS, 60 Minutes did a 1.5 before repeats, down from last week’s football-aided 2.3.

On ABC, America’s Funniest Home Videos scored a 0.9, down 18%, Once Upon a Time a 0.9, down 10%, and a two-hour Secrets and Lies finale a flat 0.7.

Michael Malone

Michael Malone is content director at B+C and Multichannel News. He joined B+C in 2005 and has covered network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television, including writing the "Local News Close-Up" market profiles. He also hosted the podcasts "Busted Pilot" and "Series Business." His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The L.A. Times, The Boston Globe and New York magazine.