CBS Scores Huge Ratings With Sunday NFL Telecasts

The NFL continued to be a ratings juggernaut for networks carrying live games last week, with CBS the latest to enjoy a huge audience for its football telecasts. 

CBS's October 22 late-afternoon NFL game window — mostly featuring the Los Angeles Chargers-Kansas City Chiefs game — averaged 24.38 million viewers to lead all live sports events during the week of October 16-22, according to Nielsen numbers published by SportsMedia Watch. The audience was CBS’s biggest for an NFL football regular season game in more than a decade, according to the publication. The network’s early Sunday NFL window was the third most-watched live sports event with 15.68 million viewers. 

NBC’s Sunday Night Football telecast featuring the Miami Dolphins-Philadelphia Eagles finished second with 20.61 million viewers.

On the college football field, Fox’s October 21 Ohio State-Penn State game drew nearly 10 million viewers, making it the seventh most-watched regular season college football game in the network’s history and the third most-watched game of the college football season, according to Fox Sports. 

Major League Baseball’s Championship Series coverage on TBS, Fox, truTV and FS1 finished among the top five most-watched non-football telecasts last week. TBS’s October 17 Game 2 telecast of the Arizona Diamondbacks-Philadelphia Phillies NLCS series was the most-watched game of the week with 5.12 million viewers. 

Other notable performances included ESPN’s October 18 telecast of Game 4 of the WNBA Finals. The game between the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty drew 889,000 viewers in becoming the most-watched WNBA Finals Game 4 on record. Overall, the WNBA Finals averaged 728,000 viewers, up 36% from last year and the most-watched Finals in 20 years, according to ESPN. (NEXTtv)