NFL Grabs 34% of TV Watch Time During Divisional Playoffs
ESPN stalwart ‘SportsCenter’ gets a boost
NFL football continued to dominate TV viewing during the league’s divisional playoffs on Saturday and Sunday.
According to Inscape, the data unit of smart TV maker Vizio, the playoff games captured a 33.62% share of viewership during the weekend.
That’s an increase from last season, when the divisional playoff games generated a 27.48% share of viewing.
The NFL said that its divisional playoff games averaged 40 million viewers on traditional TV and digital — the highest number on record going back to 1988.
The Sunday Kansas City Chiefs-Buffalo Bills primetime game on CBS (with Taylor Swift in the building) averaged 50.4 million viewers, the most watched divisional or wild card game on record.
Saturday’s Green Bay Packers-San Francisco 49ers game averaged 37.5 million viewers, making it the most watched Saturday NFL playoff game.
The average over the four games on Saturday and Sunday was up 7% compared to a year ago and up 5% from the 2021-22 season, when the previous high was registered, according to Nielsen and first party.digital data.
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Inscape said college basketball games grabbed the second-biggest share of viewing with 2.06%.
Postseason NFL Countdown on ESPN was the No.3 show over the weekend with a 1.62% share.
The big NFL weekend also gave ESPN’s SportsCenter a boost. SportsCenter over Saturday and Sunday had a 1.35% share, and jumped up to be the No. 4 show. The previous weekend, SportsCenter ranked No. 12 with a 0.67% share, according to Inscape.
Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.