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Football Carries NBC to Dominant Sunday Ratings Win; Long-Running ABC Show Has Its Worst Premiere Ever; CBS Sees Three Shows Hit Series Lows

Oct 14, 2013  •  Post A Comment

NBC chalked up a dominant performance in the Sunday night broadcast ratings, based on Nielsen overnights for the key 18-49 demo. TVbytheNumbers.com reports that the Peacock’s "Sunday Night Football" coverage of the Dallas Cowboys’ win over the Washington Redskins dwarfed the rest of the broadcast networks’ prime-time programming.

The football game delivered a preliminary 7.3 average rating in viewers 18-49, up 28% from the equivalent number for the game a week ago. The report notes that the nature of live programming means the preliminary numbers for both NBC and Fox, which had some football carryover in prime time and also carried the MLB playoffs, will be subject to significant adjustments.

Fox’s coverage of the ALCS series between the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox delivered a 2.4 average in 18-49, improving 41% from the Saturday game.

In non-sports programming, the top show of the night on broadcast was ABC’s "Once Upon a Time," which dipped 12% from a week ago to a 2.3 average in the 18-49 demo. ABC’s season premiere of "America’s Funniest Home Videos" managed only a 1.1, down 27% from the season premiere a year ago and the show’s lowest-rated premiere of all time.

ABC’s "Revenge" came in with a 1.7 in the demo, losing 11% from a week ago, while "Betrayal" set a series low with a 0.9, off 18% from last week.

CBS had three shows hit series lows: "The Amazing Race" settled for a 1.8 average in viewers 18-49, losing 25% from a week ago; "The Good Wife" also lost 25%, dipping to a 1.2; and "The Mentalist" fell 13% to a 1.3. The news wasn’t much better for "60 Minutes," which plummeted 61% from its football-delayed number a week ago to a 1.5.

For prime time overall, NBC’s 6.0 average led the field in the 18-49 demo, followed by Fox’s 3.6 average, with ABC and CBS tied for a distant third place with 1.5 averages, and Univision trailing with a 1.1. NBC was well out front in total viewers too, averaging 16.0 million to lead Fox (11.4 million), CBS (9.1 million), ABC (5.4 million) and Univision (3.0 million).

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