Primetime Ratings: Strong ‘Sunday Night Football’ Beats ‘AMA’s Easily

NBC won the Sunday ratings race, NFL action leading the net to a 4.2 in viewers 18-49, per the Nielsen overnights, and an 18 share. That blasted the 2.6/11 put up by Fox.

NBC’s Football Night in America went up 37% to 2.6 and the pre-game climbed 21%. The game, Packers versus Niners, did a 4.8, which was 12% better than last week’s Bears-Rams.

Fox had Cowboys-Patriots creeping into prime. The OT did a 4.0 and The Simpsons fell 14% to 1.8. Bless the Harts shot up 67% to 1.0 and Bob’s Burgers and Family Guy both went up a tenth of a point to 0.9.

ABC did a 1.5/6. America’s Funniest Home Videos did a flat 0.8 and the American Music Awards a 1.7. Last year’s American Music Awards scored a 1.8.

CBS got a 0.6/3. 60 Minutes tallied a 0.7 (last Sunday’s 60 Minutes, with an NFL lead-in, got a 3.3) and God Friended Me lost 40% for a 0.6 while NCIS: Los Angeles slid 14% to 0.6. Madam Secretary dropped 33% to 0.4.

Telemundo posted a 0.5/2 and Univision a 0.4/2. The Exatlon Estados Unidos finale took up all of Telemundo’s prime and its 0.5 was flat. On Univision, Aqui Y Ahora grew 33% to 0.4 and the two-hour Reina de la Cancion season closer posted a flat 0.4. Cronicas expanded 33% to 0.4.

The CW got a 0.1/0 with reruns. 

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.