Primetime Ratings: Football Beats Baseball

NBC won Sunday ratings by a mile, Sunday Night Football setting up the network for a 4.2 in viewers 18-49, per the Nielsen overnights, and a 17 share. That beat the 2.0/8 that Fox posted.

NBC had Football Night in America up a tenth at 2.1 and the pre-game down 12% at 4.3. The game, Packers versus Chiefs, scored a 5.1. It was a 12% drop from last week’s Cowboys-Eagles match-up.

Fox had the World Series. The MLB pre-game did a 1.2, before game five of Astros-Nationals got a 2.4. Game four got a 2.1 on Saturday. Houston holds a 3-2 series lead over Washington.

CBS scored a 1.6/7 and ABC a 0.6/2. On CBS, Browns-Patriots led into prime. 60 Minutes got a 2.3 (without the football lead-in last week, it did a 0.8), then God Friended Me shot up 50% to 0.9. NCIS: Los Angeles scored a flat 0.7 and Madam Secretary went up 25% to 0.5.

On ABC, special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown did a 0.7 and Kids Say the Darndest Things a flat 0.6. Shark Tank fell 17% to 0.5 and The Rookie scored a level 0.6.

Telemundo and Univision both rated a 0.3/1. On Telemundo, three hours of Exatlon Estados Unidos averaged a flat 0.4 and El Secreto de Selena tumbled 33% to 0.2.

On Univision, Aqui Y Ahora got a 0.2 and Reina de la Cancion a 0.3 across two hours. Cronicas did a 0.2. All three did 0.3s last Sunday.

The CW rated a 0.2/1. Batwoman got a 0.3 and Supergirl a 0.2, both flat. 

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.