FOX had a football game for the ages overrun into the Sunday broadcast schedule. The Standard of Excellence in NFL Football, The Green Bay Packers, ‘America’s Team’ overcame the largest deficit in their long history (since 1918) and defeated ‘The Dallas’ Team’, with an unbelievable comeback, over coming a 23 point deficit to win in the final minutes in the Lone Star State. With a backup quarterback, the old Acme Packers were as good on offense and defense in the second half as they were bad in the first half. Green Bay’s 37-36 win powered FOX in finishing a strong second for the evening. The game drew 21.38 million viewers at 7P.
But it was the overall schedule that allowed NBC victory with football pre-game through the game with Cincinnati losing to Pittsburgh that brought Sunday’s victory to The Peacock Network. At 7P, ‘Football Night In America’ produced a meager 5.31 million viewers and at 8P produced 12.65 million, most of whom were watching highlights of the game on FOX that was just concluded. At 830P, the game drew a modest 14.56 million on average for the balance of the evening. It was good enough to overcome the competition.
But it was at FOX, after the astounding lead-in with football that produced a second spot on the evening. At 730P, ‘The OT’ which was really an extension of the game’s concluding moments, drew 19.5 million. At 8P, it all fell apart. ‘The Simpsons’, while drawing an above average 8.38 million viewers could not avoid the collapse of the rest of the schedule. At 830P, ‘Bob’s Burgers’ pulled in 5.53 million and at 9P, ‘Family Guy’ drew 6.27 million and at 930P, ‘American Dad’ had 4.94 million viewers. With the power of football and the strength of ‘The Simpson’s’, Animation Nation just isn’t working to pull in the eyeballs to become #1. Lesson infacticly learned.
CBS on the other hand, ’60 Minutes’ drew 10.611 million viewers at 7P. Then at 8P, The Tiffany Network had the world’s first reality show have its season finale. ‘Survivor: Blood vs Water’ drew 10.17 million viewers for two hours, down from 11.12 million from last year’s series finale. Then at 10P. ‘Survivor: Reunion’ could only pull in 7.7 million. Thus, after a very solid, stead evening, Black Rock fell to third place because of the 10P show. This is where ‘The Mentalist’ could have given the network a boost and finished higher. Another lesson learned.
Then there was ABC. The Alphabet Network simply was not competitive on this Sunday, or for that matter, on any Sunday. When you top program, ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’ begins the evening at 7P with the largest audience on the network for the evening, 6.65 million viewers, you are in trouble. At 8P, ‘Once Upon A Time’ drew 6.4 million. At 9P, ‘Revenge’ pulled in 6.1 million. Then at 10P, ABC fell apart. ‘Betrayal’ drew 3.7 million, making CBS’ ‘Survivor: Reunion’ look strong. In all fairness, ABC drew only 4.19 million on this comparable day last year. So, it did improve, just not enough to compete. If you are averaging only 6 million viewers on average for an evening, and you are a major broadcast network, you are in trouble. Rethink the schedule. Rethink who your audience is. Rethink. Lesson learned.
On cable, CBS’ Showtime pay tv channel has a new #1 program. ‘Homeland’ in the season finale, drew 2.7 million viewers at 9PM. It became the largest audience ever for the series. However, something happened, that for those of you who wish to view it On Demand we won’t spoil it, that may affect the future of the show. ‘Masters of Sex’ at 10P drew 1.2 million.
For the record, NBC was #1 with 12.2 million viewers (down 4.7 million vs last year’s comparable day) and a 7.5 rating with a 12 share of the audience. FOX was very close #2 and finished with 11 million viewers on average with a 6.4/10. CBS was #3 with 9.66 million viewers and a 5.7/9. ABC finished #4 with 5.72 million and a 3.6/6. Univision drew a very low 1.88 million viewers and a 1.0/2 as Telemundo drew a 0.5/1.
ACROSS THE POND:
BBC One won in a very close battle Sunday evening. At 7P, ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ brought in 9.63 million viewers (38.9% share of available audience), up 300,000 viewers from last week’s results. At 7:45P, ‘Sports Personality of the Year’, won by Andy Murray, the current Wimbledon Champion, drew 5.72 million (22% share). It peaked during the last 15 minutes of the program just for the announcement with 7.82 million viewers.
ITV threw out the biggest challenge for the evening. The finals of ‘The X Factor’ drew 9.51 (36.3% share) as Sam Bailey won. It was up a million over Saturday’s show. The show peaked at 845P with 10.6 (34.9%). It added 219,000 viewers on ITV+1. At 930P, ‘Through The Keyhole’ drew 3.72 million viewers (16%). ITV 2 had ‘The Xtra Factor’ at 930P and drew 1.11 million viewers (4.7%).
Over on BBC Two, ‘British Sewing Bee’ drew 1.15 million (4.5%) at 7:45P. ‘The Duchess’ drew 1.43 million (5.6%) at 845P.
Channel 4 presented ‘British Killer Storms’ at 730P and drew 1.4 million (5.5%). ‘Homeland’ drew 1.59 million viewers (6.1%) at 9P.
Channel 5 presented the movie, ‘Ghost Rider’, at 730P and drew 919,000 viewers (3.5%).
BBC Three had ‘Family Guy’ which drew 697,000 viewers (3.1%) at 10P.
No matter where you were watching television on Sunday, people were…
Switching Channels!
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