The Chiefs’ victory over the Bengals netted 53.12 million viewers
CBS’ broadcast of the AFC Championship Game Sunday night became the most-watched TV program on any network since Super Bowl LVI last year. The Kansas City Chiefs’ victory over the Cincinnati Bengals netted 53.12 million viewers, yielding the most-viewed NFL Conference Championship Game in four years.
The network’s game and post-game coverage also served as a great lead-in to its procedural “Fire Country,” recently renewed for a second season. Sunday’s special episode averaged 10.1 million viewers and a rating of 1.9 in Nielsen live plus same-day figures. It marked the largest post-AFC Championship Program on CBS since 2017. Last year, the Super Bowl game cracked the 100 million viewer mark with an average 112.3 million watchers across both TV and streaming.
In total, CBS delivered massive viewership that night, with 63 million viewers tuning in across primetime hours and beyond. The game averaged 14.4 in the 18-49 demo, with post-game coverage coming in at 6.3 and 24.33 million viewers.
On Paramount+, the Chiefs-Bengals outing became the streamer’s most-watched live sporting event of all time, seeing double-digit year-over-year growth in households, minutes and average minute audience. “Fire Country” replicated its success on the platform to become the No. 1 entertainment program on Sunday based on subscriber reach.
The AFC Championship game was up 11% versus last year’s AFC Game. At one point, Sunday’s game peaked with 59.37 million viewers. Following the game’s airing, “Fire Country” — which premiered starting at 10:31 p.m. ET — marked the largest live plus same-day audience for a scripted original series on television since April 6, 2021 — CBS’ “NCIS” airing.
Overall, “NFL on CBS” concluded a record-setting season ahead of the upcoming Super Bowl LVII game, which will take place Feb. 12 between the Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. The AFC Championship Game capped off the playoffs with the network’s largest audience of the year. CBS Sports also scored its most-watched “NFL on CBS” regular season in seven years and continued that momentum into the playoffs by leading all networks during the NFL postseason, averaging 40.8 million viewers per game. The success also translated to Paramount+, which recorded its most-streamed NFL season ever.
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Natalie Oganesyan
Prior to becoming a TV reporter at TheWrap in 2022, Natalie served as a general entertainment news reporter. She has covered film, television, music and business beats for two years, beginning her career as an intern at Variety, where she continued to freelance as a TV features reporter. Since then, Natalie has been a Celebrity News Writer at BuzzFeed and contributed to such publications as Metacritic and Vox Media, where she was part of the company's inaugural Writers Workshop.