The NFL may have been ready to resume play on Sunday, but many fans across the country may not have been ready to tune into pro football in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
Fox's late afternoon national match-ups, the St. Louis Rams-San Francisco 49ers game and the Philadelphia Eagles-Seattle Seahawks contest, averaged a 12.5 rating, while early regional games averaged a 7.5 in Nielsen overnight numbers. That produced an overall 10.0 rating, a 10% drop from last season's second week of NFL action.
CBS's slate of games fared better, averaging an 11.2, a 7% increase over last season's 10.5 for the comparable week.
The combined average of the two networks' NFL telecasts was a 31.2, a 4% drop from last season's 32.6.
In New York, the New York Giants' 13-3 win over the Kansas City Chiefs drew an 8.8 rating - a 27% drop from last season's average for Giants games in the market. That early afternoon game ran into the mid-afternoon telecast of the interfaith memorial for the victims of the World Trade Center attacks at Yankee Stadium. - Richard Tedesco
