Ratings Roundup: Rams’ Win Over Cowboys Garners Most Watched Saturday Primetime Telecast in Fox History

Ratings roundup is a rundown of rating news from the past week and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week’s edition, Los Angeles’ win over Dallas headlines the NFL’s Divisional round, Fox’s Premier Boxing Champions brings in the network’s most-watched boxing telecast, and Univision highlights their Liga MX coverage.

Photo: Los Angeles Times

Cowboys-Rams Named Most-Watched Saturday Primetime Telecast in Fox History
The Saturday night NFC Divisional matchup between the Rams and the Cowboys scored more than 34 million total viewers. On Fox, the game registered a 17.9/33 fast national rating/share, a +25% over last year’s comparable window (vs. 26,7 million). The linear broadcast captured 33.3 million viewers.

On Fox Digital, the L.A. victory was the most streamed NFL playoff game ever with an average minute audience of 618,673, a +7 increase from last week’s Wildcard matchup on Fox (580,000).

As for Fox Deportes, this was the most-watched Divisional game in history with 127,000 viewers.

Here is how the other playoff games faired…

…Also on Fox, the New Orleans Saints win over the defending Super Bowl champions Philadelphia Eagles delivered a 23.8/42 metered market rating. This was a +9 increase over last year’s Sunday Divisional game on Fox (New Orleans-Minnesota: 21.8/38)…

…According to SportsMediaWatch, the Patriots’ rout over the Chargers in the AFC Divisional Round earned a 17.1 rating and 29.2 million viewers on CBS, down 7% in ratings and viewership from last year (Jaguars-Steelers: 18.3, 31.4M) and down 14% and 21% respectively from Steelers-Chiefs on NBC in 2017 (19.8, 37.1M).

New England’s blowout win ranks as the lowest rated Sunday Divisional Round game in more than 20 years (ratings prior to 1999 were not available). The previous low was a 17.9 for Ravens-Steelers in 2002…

…Lastly, on NBC, the Kansas City Chiefs’ 31-13 victory over the Indianapolis Colts averaged 29.1 million TV-only viewers – ranking as the most-watched Saturday 4:30 p.m. ET NFL Divisional Playoff in three years (31.5 million for Chiefs-Patriots on CBS, 1/16/16).

In addition, NBC Sports’ Colts-Chiefs Total Audience Delivery (TAD) average of 29.6 million viewers across television and digital is UP 8% from last year’s early Saturday NFL Divisional Playoff (27.4 million TAD for Falcons-Eagles on NBC, 1/13/18), according to fast national live plus same day data from Nielsen, and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

For this season’s NFL Playoffs, NBC’s two-game Total Audience Delivery average of 33.1 million viewers is the 2nd-best two-game average in the 13-year history of the NBC Sunday Night Football package and UP 31% from last year (25.2 million). NBC’s NFL Playoff schedule consisted of two Wild Card games following the 2006-13 seasons, and one Wild Card and one Divisional game in the 2014-18 seasons.

TV-only viewership for Colts-Chiefs, which resulted in Kansas City winning its first home playoff game in 25 years, peaked at 32.0 million viewers in the final minutes of the game from 7:30-7:39 p.m. ET. Saturday’s game (4:36 p.m.-7:39 p.m. ET) registered a fast national TV household rating of 16.8/35.

NBC Sports Digital delivered its best-ever NFL Divisional viewership for Saturday’s game as fans consumed 95.3 million live streaming minutes with an Average Minute Audience (AMA) of 493,000 viewers across NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app, and NFL Digital platforms.

PBC on Fox Pushes Ratings Needle for Network’s Boxing History
FS1’s PBC Fight Night featuring undefeated challenger Caleb Plant defeating Jose Uzcategui for the IBF Super Middleweght Championships delivered 761,000 viewers, making it the network’s most-watched boxing telecast ever. The main event peaked with 986,000 viewers from 10:00 to 10:09 pm ET.

Univision’s Liga MX Telecasts
With its live coverage of the Liga MX matchup between Cruz Azul and Guadalajara (Chivas), Univision captured the No. 3 broadcast network ranking, ahead of ABC, CBS, and Telemundo on Saturday night among Adults 18-34. Cruz Azul vs. Guadalajara (Chivas) attracted more Total Viewers 2+ (+42% to 1.0 million), Adults 18-49 (+63% to 511,000), and Adults 18-34 (+79% to 209,000) than the prior Saturday’s soccer match of Leon vs. Tigres UANL as well as increased the network’s audience levels in the 8pm to 10pm time slot from the comparable Saturday last year among Total Viewers 2+ (+21%), Adults 18-49 (+18%), and Adults 18-34 (+50%). The sports event also ranked within the top 10 most-watched programs on broadcast television and drove Univision to a first-place finish on Spanish-language television for the entire night with double-digit audience advantages over Telemundo among Adults 18-49 (+39% adv.) and Adults 18-34 (+35% adv.).