Saturday Final Nationals: Lions-Seahawks on NBC Dips to 9-Year Viewership Low for Saturday Night NFL Wild Card

NBC ruled Saturday night by far over the other there broadcast networks. With the NFC Wild Card matchup between the Detroit Lions and the Seattle Seahawks, NBC in prime time more than tripled the viewership (26.42 million vs. 8.34 million) and quintupled the adults 18-49 delivery (8.5 rating vs. 1.7 rating) of ABC, CBS and Fox combined.

NBC’s 26.9 million viewers for the Lions-Seahawks NFC Wild Card telecast makes it the most-watched Saturday night show on any network since Jan. 16, 2016 (33.7 million for the Packers-Cardinals NFC Playoff game on NBC).

Saturday night’s Lions-Seahawks NFC Wild Card Game on NBC peaked at 28.4 million viewers from 9-9:15 p.m. ET.

Nonetheless, Lions-Seahawks drew the least amount of viewers for a Saturday night NFL Wild Card game since NBC’s Jacksonville-Pittsburgh (25.7 million) in 2008.

Top markets for Lions-Seahawks on NBC: Seattle 46.8/72; Detroit 33.0/49; Portland 30.1/44; Richmond 22.5/31; Milwaukee 22.0/35; Norfolk 21.6/31; Las Vegas 21.3/34; Denver 20.3/36; Phoenix 19.1/32; and Greensboro 19.0/26.

The Lions-Seahawks game ranks as NBC Sports Digital’s best-ever Wild Card Game (adding an average audience of 200,000 viewers), with 1.0 million uniques and 34.0 million live streaming minutes.

Earlier in the day, the joint ABC-ESPN telecast of Oakland Raiders-Houston Texans in the AFC Wild Card playoff delivered 25.1 million viewers and a 14.4 US household rating, according to final nationals; off 1 percent in viewership from the year-ago Kansas City-Houston game (also on ABC-ESPN). The game rating peaked during the 5:45-6 p.m. quarter hour with 28,218,000 viewers and a 16.3 household rating, based on fast nationals.

On TV, this is the fourth most-watched Saturday afternoon NFL Wild Card game among viewers in 16 years.

ESPN’s streaming audience for Raiders-Texans attracted an additional average minute audience of 210,000 viewers across the ESPN and ESPN Deportes streams, a 52 percent gain year-over-year. Between the two streams there were 466,000 viewers who watched 45.2 million live minutes – up 22 and 58 percent year-over-year, respectively. Viewers stayed with the streams for an average of 97 minutes, which is the highest number for an NFL game on WatchESPN this season and up 30 percent year-over-year.

The game delivered a combined 17.8 television rating in San Francisco (this market includes Oakland and San Jose) – the highest rating in this market for a Saturday afternoon Wild Card game since 2007 – and a 31.2 rating in Houston. The top 10 metered markets (not including those of the competing teams): Norfolk (24.8), Richmond-Petersburg (24.1), Sacramento (22.8), Atlanta (22.2), Kansas City (21.7), Las Vegas (21.1), San Antonio (19.6), Austin and Portland (19.3) and Charlotte (18.9).

(Source: NBC, ESPN)

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* AFF = Number of affiliates (stations) airing the program
* CVG = percent of coverage in U.S.
	Saturday, January 7, 2017
	PROGRAM	AFF*	CVG* (PCT)	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			2.6/5	4109	0.6/2	1.0/3	1.3/4
8:01	To Tell The Truth (rs)	249	93	3.0/5	5094	0.9/4	1.4/5	1.8/5
9:00	Truth and Lies: The Menendez Brothers – American Sons, American Murderers (rs)	260	94	2.4/4	3624	0.5/2	0.9/3	1.1/3
	PROGRAM	AFF*	CVG* (PCT)	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			2.2/4	3238	0.2/1	0.4/1	0.6/2
8:00	Ransom	255	94	2.1/4	3282	0.2/1	0.4/2	0.5/1
9:00	Crimetime Saturday Criminal Minds (rs)	255	94	2.0/3	2942	0.2/1	0.4/1	0.6/2
10:00	48 Hours	255	94	2.4/4	3490	0.3/1	0.5/2	0.8/2
	PROGRAM	AFF*	CVG* (PCT)	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			15.0/25	26324	6.7/27	8.5/27	10.3/27
8:06	NFC Wild Card Pre-Kick (s)	245	93	9.4/16	16781	4.0/17	5.1/18	6.3/18
8:16	NFC Wild Card Game Detroit @ Seattle (s) (thru 11:06)	245	93	14.8/25	26885	6.6/27	8.4/27	10.1/28
	PROGRAM	AFF*	CVG* (PCT)	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			0.7/1	990	0.2/1	0.3/1	0.4/1
8:00	Lethal Weapon (rs)	253	94	0.7/1	1010	0.2/1	0.3/1	0.4/1
9:01	Star (rs)	253	94	0.6/1	970	0.2/1	0.3/1	0.4/1
	PROGRAM			HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			0.6/1	1180		0.5/2
6:55	Crónicas de Sábado			0.9/2	1500		0.6/2
7:55	Fútbol Mexicano Primera Division Tigres vs. Santos (s)			0.6/1	1052		0.5/1
9:58	Fútbol Mexicano Primera Division Guadalajara vs. UNAM (s) (thru 12:01 a.m.)			0.8/1	1592		0.7/2
	PROGRAM			HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average			0.6/1	1108		0.4/1
7:00	Cine El Analfabeto (1960)			0.6/1	1249		0.4/1
9:00	Cine 007: Quantum of Solace (2008)			0.5/1	967		0.5/1
	PROGRAM			HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average (preliminary)			0.6/1	1067	0.3/1	0.4/1
8:00	Cine Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) (preliminary)			0.5/1	881	0.3/1	0.3/1
9:00	Cine The Legend of Hercules (2014) (preliminary)			0.6/1	1141	0.3/1	0.4/1
10:00	Cine The Legend of Hercules (2014) (preliminary)			0.6/1	1180	0.3/1	0.5/2

Note: All of this date’s Telemundo data are based on preliminary figures.

Sub-Demo Breakdowns – Saturday 1/07/17

For the entire week of January 2-8, 2017 in Total Day (8 p.m. to 5:59 a.m.), Adult Swim is up +6 percent in viewership (0.945 million vs. 0.894 million) and up +7 percent among Adults 18-49 (576,000 vs. 538,000) from one week earlier; the network is also down -8 percent in total viewership (0.945 million vs. 1.029 million) and down -7 percent among Adults 18-49 (576,000 vs. 622,000) from the same week one year ago (January 4-10, 2016). (https://programmingins.wpengine.com/?p=14075)

	PROGRAM	HH	Viewers (000)	A18-49 rating
8:00	Dragon Ball Super	0.58	1063	0.399
8:30	American Dad (r)	0.54	853	0.367
9:00	American Dad (r)	0.64	998	0.486
9:30	Bob’s Burgers (r)	0.64	1009	0.497
10:00	Bob’s Burgers (r)	0.73	1153	0.562
10:30	Family Guy (r)	0.83	1316	0.638
11:00	Family Guy (r)		1629	0.733

TOONAMI – SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 2017

	PROGRAM	Viewers (000)	A1849 rating	A1849 (000)
11:30	Dragon Ball Super	1369	0.651	835
12:00a	Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters	1124	0.515	641
12:30a	JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure	900	0.439	563
1:00a	Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn	747	0.353	453
1:30a	Hunter X Hunter	679	0.303	389
2:00a	Naruto: Shippuden	675	0.306	393
2:30a	One Piece	554	0.25	328
3:00a	One Punch Man (r)	581	0.272	349

	PROGRAM	Viewers (000)	A1849 rating
3:30a	American Dad (r)	565	0.271
4:00a	American Dad (r)	656	0.313
4:30a	Bob’s Burgers (r)	659	0.299
5:00a	Bob’s Burgers (r)	660	0.302
5:30a	King of the Hill (r)	701	0.328

Cable Rankings – Saturday 1/07/17

What follows are the top 200 most-watched shows in prime time on cable (by order of network) for Saturday, January 7:

Source: Live+Same Day data, Nielsen Media Research