The Nielsen audience’s love affair with pro football continued on Sunday night, as NBC rode an exciting Jets-Cowboys game to a dominating win in the fast national ratings, with FOX also getting a boost from the season’s first installment of its primetime postgame show. And CBS got good tune-in for it’s “9/11: 10 Years Later” documentary.
For the night, NBC averaged a 7.8 rating in the 18-49-year-old demographic, and 19.2 million viewers overall. FOX was next with a 3.2 and 7.4 million, followed by CBS (2.3, 9.4 million) and ABC (1.2, 4.8 million).
7 p.m. — FOX won the hour thanks to “The O.T.” (plus spillover from some of the late games), averaging a 5.8 demo rating and 14.1 million viewers for the hour. NBC’s “Football Night in America” was next with a 4.6 and 9.4 million, followed by “60 Minutes” on CBS (1.3, 8 million) and an “America’s Funniest Home Videos” repeat on ABC (1.2, 5.1 million).
8 p.m. — The conclusion of “Football Night in America” and the start of Jets-Cowboys combined to average an 8.8 demo rating and 22.1 million viewers for NBC, followed by the first hour of “9/11: 10 Years Later” on CBS (3.2, 11.5 million), “Simpsons” and “Family Guy” repeats on FOX (2.2, 4.7 million) and an “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” repeat on ABC (1.2, 4.4 million).
9 p.m. — Football continued to dominate for NBC, with a 9.5 demo rating and 23.3 million viewers, followed by the second half of “9/11” on CBS (3.9, 13 million), “Family Guy” and “In the Flow with Affion Crockett” on FX (1.6, 3.3 million) and ABC’s “20/20” (1.0, 4.4 million).
10 p.m. — Football owned this hour as well (9.4, 22 million), followed by “20/20” (1.6, 5.5 million) and a “Good Wife” repeat on CBS (1.0, 5 million).
All ratings information comes from preliminary Fast National Nielsen data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are subject to change, particularly in the case of live events.