Payton Manning’s return to Indianapolis for the first time since he was forced out of the quarterback position of the Colts following his injury and recovery two seasons ago, drove Sunday Night Football to some of the biggest numbers in years as NBC drew 25.87 million for the game. With a Colts victory, The Peacock Network led the way on Sunday with an average viewership of 21.451 million viewers. This was 7.6 million viewers ahead of last year’s for the network on this comparable day. It reached 28.53 million at 830P.
CBS on the strength of their football overrun and a powerful ’60 Minutes’ (14.92 million) featuring former Vice President, Dick Chaney, won the pushed back lineup at 730P but then finished #2 in each of the following programs. ‘Amazing Race’ drew 9.02 million; ‘The Good Wife’ had 8.97 followers (a million less than it did last year on this day) while ‘The Mentalist’ is tiring out with the hunt for Red John’ as it only drew 7.3 million viewers, one of its lowest totals ever. If CBS does not step in and end this Red John arc, this program is doomed for cancellation. If there are five more people who could be this murderous character, fans can count on at least five or six more episodes that nobody cares about anymore. As for ‘The Good Wife’, it is turning into ‘who cares if she leaves or doesn’t leave’. The disjointed law firm of Lockhart & Gardner deserves to be killed off.
The #3 program on this Sunday evening was ‘Walking Dead’ on AMC with 13.9 million viewers and a 7.1 rating. Although very large, it was down 14% from the previous week’s record-setting rating. It was the top rated cable program of the evening.
ABC led off with ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’ with 5.72 million at 7P while ‘Once Upon A Time’ drew a network high for the evening of 6.98 million to maintain third place. ‘Revenge’ drew 6.056 million viewers while ‘Betrayal’ finished the evening with 3.58 million at 10P.
FOX finished dead last beginning with a host of reruns on this Sunday. Beginning with ‘Bob’s Burgers’ at 7P with 2.63 million; ‘Family Guy’ with 2.28 at 730P; ‘The Simpsons’ at 8P with 3.16 million, the high for the network on this evening, was followed by another ‘The Simpsons’ episode at 830P with 3.07 million. ‘Family Guy’ at 9P drew 2.74 million while a second rerun of ‘The Family Guy’ drew 2.24 million at 930P. It is very unusual for a network to run all reruns on a Sunday evening in October.
For the record, NBC finished #1 with 21.451 million viewers, a 12.6 rating and a 20 share. CBS was #2 with 12.272 million (down 2.2 million vs this day last year) with a 7.6/12; AMC was #3 with 7.243 million average hourly prime time viewers; ABC #4 with 5.584 million (down 1.8 million vs last year on this day) with a 3.5/5 share. Univision finished #5 with a 1.6 rating and a 3 share and FOX #6 drew an average of 2.687 million viewers (down 3 million vs last year on this Sunday) with a 1.5 rating and a 2 share. Telemundo finished seventh at 0.6 rating and a 1 share.
ACROSS THE POND: BBC1’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ on Sunday, its results show, was #1 in the UK with 9.4 million viewers (38.4 share) between 715P-8P. ‘Downton Abbey’ drew 9.2 million (36.5 share). ‘The X Factor’ drew 8.9 million for its results show in ITV. ‘The Paradise’ which use to air on Tuesday’s aired an hour before ‘Downton Abbey’, and drew 5.2 million. ‘By Any Means’ on BBC1 drew 3.2 million viewers at 9P. Channel 4’s ‘Bigfoot Files’ had 2.1 million; ‘Homeland’ finished with just under 2 million. ‘Karl Pilkington: The Moaning of Life’ on Sky1 drew 812,000 viewers. Channel 4’s ‘Toast of London’ had just 361,000 viewers.
As you can see, this was a day when people were really…
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