The average total viewership for the season’s first two NFL prime-time games was its largest since 2015, averaging 24.65 million viewers, a 5.6% increase from last year’s 23.35 million average, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen and NBC.
The Detroit Lions’ 21-20 upset over the reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs in Thursday’s NFL Kickoff game had a total audience delivery of 27.5 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, NBC Sports digital and NFL digital platforms, the most for an NFL Kickoff game since 2015 and a 26.7% increase over the total audience for the 2022 game, a 31-10 loss by the Los Angeles Rams to the Buffalo Bills.
The official viewership for Thursday’s game was 24.752 million viewers, the most for any prime-time program since Fox’s Super Bowl LVII postgame show on Feb. 12 averaged 58.5 million viewers and a 24.1% increase from the 19.939 million average for the 2022 game.
NBC has televised the NFL Kickoff game annually since 2006.
The Dallas Cowboys’ 40-0 victory in the most-lopsided shutout since NBC began airing “Sunday Night Football” in 2006 had a total audience delivery of 21.8 million viewers, a 12.8% decrease from the 25 million for last season’s “Sunday Night Football” opener, a 19-3 loss by Dallas to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The official audience was 20.178 million, a 13.4% decrease from last year’s 23.296 million viewers, and second among prime-time programs airing between Sept. 4 and Sunday, according to Nielsen figures released Tuesday.
With two NFL games, NBC averaged more viewers for its prime-time programming than the combined total for the other three major English-language broadcast networks, averaging 7.65 million viewers for 22 hours of programming. CBS averaged 3 million viewers and ABC 2.05 million, both for 22 hours, and Fox 2.41 million for 16 hours.
Fox’s average included a 41-minute runover of its afternoon NFL coverage into prime time which averaged 14.395 million viewers. The runover is not considered a separate program.
Outside of its NFL programming, NBC’s most-watched program was the Tuesday edition of “America’s Got Talent,” which averaged 5.56 million viewers, 10th for the week and second among non-sports programs.
The most-watched non-sports program was “60 Minutes, ” which averaged 8.358 million viewers, seventh for the week, for an updated rebroadcast of a report on New York City firefighters who were sent to rescue victims at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
The news magazine began 45 minutes later than usual in the Eastern and Central time zones, where the bulk of the nation’s population lives, because of CBS’ afternoon NFL coverage. The viewership figure for the runover was not immediately available.
ABC’s most-watched program was “Celebrity Family Feud,” 19th for the week and ninth among non-sports programs, averaging 2.867 million viewers.
Fox’s most-watched program was its 19-minute NFL postgame show, “The OT,” which was eighth for the week, averaging 6.86 million viewers. Its most-watched non-sports program was the season premiere of “The Masked Singer,” which followed “The OT” and averaged 3.978 million viewers, 13th for the week and fourth among non-sports programs.
The CW averaged 360,000 viewers for its 14 hours of programming. Its most-watched program was Saturday’s Cincinnati-Pittsburgh college football game which averaged 617,000 viewers, 139th for the week, one spot below the rerun of the 1965-71 CBS comedy “Hogan’s Heroes,” which ran at 10:30 p.m. Sept. 5 on MeTV and averaged 618,000 viewers. The overall ranks for both programs were not available.
The 20 most-watched prime-time programs consisted of two NFL games, five NFL pregame shows; Fox’s NFL postgame show, “The OT”; two college football games on ESPN; “60 Minutes”; the Tuesday and Wednesday episodes of the NBC alternative series, “America’s Got Talent”; the NBC alternative series “American Ninja Warrior”; three episodes of CBS’ “Big Brother”; the Fox alternative program, “The Masked Singer”; the ABC alternative series “Celebrity Family Feud”; and a rerun of the CBS comedy, “Young Sheldon.”
ESPN’s coverage of Texas’ 34-24 upset of Alabama on Saturday was the most-watched cable program, averaging 7.963 million viewers, eighth overall.
The combination of two nights of college football and four of tennis’ U.S. Open made ESPN the most-watched cable network — and second most-watched network overall behind NBC, averaging 3.077 million.
Fox News Channel dropped to second after 10 consecutive first-place finishes, averaging 1.515 million viewers. It was first among cable news networks for the 13th consecutive week and 133rd time in 134 weeks.
MSNBC was third for the second consecutive week, averaging 995,000 viewers.
The cable prime-time top 20 consisted of three ESPN college football telecasts; three nights of U.S. Open coverage on ESPN; nine Fox News Channel weeknight political talk shows — four of “Jesse Watters Primetime,” three of “Hannity” and two of “Gutfeld!”; three MSNBC political talk shows — two broadcasts of “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” and one of “All In with Chris Hayes”; the 8 p.m. segment of the USA Network professional wrestling program “Monday Night Raw”; and the Hallmark Channel period drama “When Calls The Heart.”
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs were NBC’s coverage of the NFL Kickoff game and “Sunday Night Football”; the 11-minute NFL Kickoff game pre-kickoff show; the 11-minute “Sunday Night Football” pre-kickoff show; the 18-minute third segment of NBC’s “Football Night in America”; the 15-minute NFL Kickoff game pregame show; CBS’ “60 Minutes”; ESPN’s coverage of the Alabama-Texas game; the 19-minute Fox NFL postgame show, “The OT”; and the Tuesday edition of “America’s Got Talent.”