Ratings: ‘Sunday Night Football’ Rises 40 Percent Over Last Year Heading Into Final Game of 2018

CBS’ “Madam Secretary” lands season high in demo with 100th episode

Kansas City Chiefs v Seattle Seahawks
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NBC’s second-to-last “Sunday Night Football” of 2018 rose 40 percent against last year’s Week 16 game, according to preliminary data from Nielsen.

Scoring a 12.6 rating/24 share among metered-market households, the Seattle Seahawks’ win against the Kansas City Chiefs outshined the 9.0 rating/17 share brought in by the broadcaster’s comparable Minnesota Vikings-Green Bay Packers “SNF” game in 2017, which aired on a Saturday.

The Seahawks-Chiefs matchup is also the top Week 16 “SNF” game since 2014 and marks the 13th time in 16 games that the franchise is up versus last year, including Thanksgiving. And, naturally, the Seahawks’ victory led NBC to yet another easy Sunday primetime win in both the demo and total viewers.

Due to the nature of live sports, the below fast-national ratings for NBC and CBS are subject to significant adjustment when final Nielsen numbers come in.

NBC was first in ratings with a 4.2 rating in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic and in total viewers with an average of 15.2 million, according to preliminary numbers. That was all due to “Sunday Night Football” and its pregame show.

CBS was second in ratings with a 2.2 and in viewers with 11.2 million. Following an afternoon NFL overrun, “60 Minutes” starting at 8 p.m. posted a 1.8 and 10.9 million viewers. At 9, the 100th episode of “Madam Secretary” hit a season high in the demo with a 0.8 rating and scored 5.9 million viewers. It was followed by a repeat.

ABC and Fox tied for third in ratings, both with a 0.5 rating.

ABC was third in viewers with 2.8 million. Following several repeats, “The Year 2018” special at 9 p.m. settled for a 0.5 and 2.8 million viewers.

Fox was fourth in viewers with 1.7 million, filling its primetime block with encore presentations.

The CW had a 0.1 rating and 688,888 viewers for the evening, also airing only reruns.

Sunday’s Nielsen ratings for the Spanish-language broadcasters Telemundo and Univision were not immediately available at the time of publication.

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