Saturday Final Nationals: Steelers-Bengals on CBS Draws Top AFC Wild Card Audience in Four Years

CBS was the dominant leader on Saturday night with “AFC Wild Card Playoff: Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati” (Women 18-34: 5.7/23; Men 18-34: 10.1/40; Women 18-49: 7.4/24; Men 18-49: 12.8/40). The game was up 12 percent from the year-ago Saturday prime time AFC Wild Card game (Baltimore-Pittsburgh, NBC, 27.9 million viewers on 1/03/15).

Steelers-Bengals was the most-watched AFC Wild Card game since Jan. 8, 2012 which also aired on CBS and also then featured the Pittsburgh Steelers as they lost to the Tim Tebow-led Denver Broncos in overtime (42.4 million).

Viewership peaked at 36.3 million at 11:30 p.m. thru to the game’s conclusion.

Earlier in the day, the Saturday afternoon NFL Wild Card game on ESPN and ABC – a Kansas City Chiefs’ 30-0 victory over the Houston Texans – averaged a 14.7 household rating and 25.171 million viewers, according to Nielsen fast nationals (19.114 million on ABC, 6.057 million on ESPN). The rating peaked among households from 5:30-6 p.m. ET with a 16.0 rating and among viewers from 6:30-7 p.m. with 27.841 million. Despite the one-sided nature of the game, Chiefs-Texans is the third most-watched Saturday afternoon NFL Wild Card game among total viewers in 17 years.

The combined rating on both ESPN and ABC represents increases of 15 percent in household rating and 13 percent in viewership, respectively, versus a year ago when the 2015 Cardinals-Panthers Wild Card game aired exclusively on ESPN and local over-the-air stations in Charlotte and Phoenix, and averaged a 12.8 household rating and 22.199 million viewers.

Saturday’s Wild Card featuring Kansas City and Houston was the first NFL game on ABC in 10 years – since Super Bowl XL in February 2006.

In Kansas City, the game delivered a combined 52.1 rating in the market. In Houston, the game delivered a combined 32.6 rating. The remaining top 10 metered markets included: Denver (24.0), Buffalo (22.6), Norfolk (22.0), Milwaukee (20.3), Cincinnati (20.1), Richmond-Petersburg (19.2), New Orleans and Albuquerque-Santa Fe (19.1), Indianapolis (18.5) and Philadelphia (18.4).

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Saturday, January 9, 2016
	PROGRAM	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average	2.1/4	3390	0.5/2	0.9/3	1.2/3
8:00	black-ish (r)	2.4/4	3999	0.7/3	1.2/4	1.5/4
8:30	black-ish (r)	1.7/3	2866	0.5/2	0.8/3	1.1/3
9:00	black-ish (r)	1.6/3	2705	0.5/2	0.8/2	1.0/3
9:30	black-ish (r)	1.5/3	2462	0.5/2	0.7/2	0.9/2
10:00	20/20 Saturday	2.7/5	2462	0.5/2	0.9/3	1.3/3
	PROGRAM	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average	17.0/28	28196	7.7/29	9.8/30	11.6/30
7:30	AFC Wild Card Pre-Gams (s)	6.8/12	11927	2.7/12	3.6/13	4.4/13
8:08	AFC Wild Card Pre-Kick (s)	12.5/22	22159	5.2/23	6.8/24	8.2/24
8:16	AFC Wild Card Playoff: Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati (thru 11:56)	17.5/30	31226	7.9/32	10.1/32	11.9/32
	PROGRAM	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average	2.7/5	3976	0.3/1	0.7/2	1.0/3
8:00	Dateline Mystery	3.1/5	4547	0.3/1	0.7/2	1.1/3
10:00	Shades of Blue (r)	1.9/3	2834	0.4/1	0.6/2	0.8/2
	PROGRAM	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-10	Network Average	0.5/1	803	0.2/1	0.2/1	0.3/1
8:00	Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life (r)	0.6/1	961	0.3/1	0.3/1	0.4/1
8:30	Bordertown (r)	0.4/1	640	0.2/1	0.2/1	0.3/1
9:00	Rosewood (r)	0.5/1	806	0.2/1	0.2/1	0.3/1
	PROGRAM	HH/Share	Viewers (000)	Adults 18-34	Adults 18-49	Adults 25-54
8-11	Network Average	0.8/1	1533		0.6/2
5:55	Futbol Mexicano: America vs. Puebla (thru 8:00)	0.7/1	1238		0.5/2
8:00	Sabadazo	0.5/1	952		0.3/1
9:00	Captura de El Chapo	0.9/2	1823		0.7/2

Cable Rankings – Saturday 1/09/16
What follows are the top 20 most-watched shows in prime time on cable for Saturday, January 9:

For the entire week of January 4-10, 2016 in Total Day (8 p.m. to 5:59 a.m.), Adult Swim is up +3 percent in total viewership (1.029 million vs. 0.998 million) and up +11 percent among Adults 18-49 (622,000 vs. 561,000) from one week earlier; the network is also down -11 percent in total viewership (1.029 million vs. 1.158 million) and down -4 percent among Adults 18-49 (622,000 vs. 645,000) from the same week one year ago (January 5-11, 2015). (programminginsider.com)

	PROGRAM	HH	Viewers (000)	A18-49 rating
8:00	Dragon Ball Z Kai (r)	0.48	756	0.25
8:30	King of the Hill (r)	0.34	524	0.20
9:00	King of the Hill (r)	0.43	683	0.28
9:30	The Cleveland Show (r)	0.56	903	0.39
10:00	The Cleveland Show (r)	0.72	1156	0.50
10:30	American Dad (r)	0.87	1362	0.60
11:00	Family Guy (r)		1564	0.69
11:30	Family Guy (r)		1630	0.74

TOONAMI – SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 2016

	PROGRAM	Viewers (000)	A1849 rating	A1849 (000)
12:00a	Dragon Ball Z Kai	1275	0.60	767
12:30a	Akame Ga Kill	1017	0.48	607
1:00a	Parasyte	902	0.43	548
1:30a	Samurai Champloo	769	0.38	478
2:00a	Naruto: Shippuden	687	0.33	420
2:30a	One Piece	664	0.30	386
3:00a	Kill La Kill (r)	679	0.31	398

	PROGRAM	Viewers (000)	A1849 rating
3:30a	The Cleveland Show (r)	688	0.32
4:00a	The Cleveland Show (r)	657	0.28
4:30a	American Dad (r)	731	0.33
5:00a	King of the Hill (r)	690	0.30
5:30a	King of the Hill (r)	699	0.31

Source: Live+Same Day data, Nielsen Media Research