ESPN Monday Night Football Viewing up 6%

ESPN’s Monday Night Football delivered another record audience in Week 6, as the Dallas Cowboys at Los Angles Chargers (October 16, 8:15 p.m. ET) garnered more than 19.7 million viewers (ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes and NFL+). 

The audience of 19,723,000 viewers is ESPN’s fifth most-watched Monday Night Football game (300+ games) and easily the most-watched ESPN MNF Week 6 game, surpassing the Bears-Cardinals in 2006 (14.2 million viewers). The Cowboys-Chargers was up 63% from last year’s week 6 game (Broncos-Chargers).

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• Peak audience: The audience peaked at 21.8 million in the fourth quarter (11 – 11:15 p.m.)
• Most Watched Telecast: Monday Night Football was the most-watched telecast of the night overall and across all key demos
• Season-to-Date: Monday Night Football Up 6%, Averaging North of 15 Million Viewers a Game
• Season-to-date, Monday Night Football is averaging 15.1 million, up 6% inclusive of all linear games (8 games vs. 7 games), despite the Week 3 presentation of two games vs. last season’s singular game in the same week. Excluding this year’s Week 3, Monday Night Football would be up 14%.

ESPN’s season success is a product of its individual week-to-week success:

• Week 1: 22.6 million viewers, ESPN’s most-watched Monday Night Football game
• Week 2 and 3: More than 21.7 million viewers during each of the two hours of overlapping action (8:15 – 10:15 p.m. ET)
• Week 4: 16.6 million viewers, the most-watched Week 4 MNF game in 14 seasons
• Week 5: 17.4 million viewers, the most-watched Week 5 MNF game in the ESPN era