There were digs at Donald Trump, honors for Prince and big wins for Ariana Grande, Drake and Rhinana at the American Music Awards (2.4/7) last night and there was a hard loss for the Green Bay Packers as the Washington Redskins won 42-24 on – and there were hard ratings tackles for ABC and NBC.
In a season that has seen the NFL struggle again and again to gain ratings traction, NBC’s SNF scored an 11.9/19 in metered market results last night. That’s down a solid 17% in the time adjusted ratings from last week’s down to the wire Seattle Seahawks win over the New England Patriots. Now granted, a big Washington win is a lot less dramatic that the yard-by-yard fight of the November 14 match-up and last night’s teams don’t have the national pull of the Patriot and increasingly the Seahawks. Plus, even with last night’s SNF’s MM results coming in as the second best result this season since the big market Dallas Cowboys and the Chicago Bears faced off on September 25, there was an almost full night of competition over on ABC.
While facing a lot less SNF competition than last year, the 2016 AMAs fell 31% from 2015 among adults 18-49 and 26% among viewers to 8.2 million watching. Though pushing ABC to a Sunday season high, that fast affiliate result is actually the worst the dick clark productions show has ever done, election year or otherwise. Nielsen started electronically tracking AMA ratings in 1992 – when another Clinton won the White House.
In fast affiliates, SNF drew a 5.6/16 between 8:30 – 11 PM and 16.91 million viewers. That’s a decline of 14% from last week’s early-unadjusted numbers in the key demo. The Seahawks vs. Patriots game, which faced the first sit-down interview with President-elect Donald Trump over on 60 Minutes, went up to 7.7/24 rating with 22.51 million watching.
As it is, NBC easily won last night with a 4.7/14 rating and 14.42 million viewers. ABC was second with a 2.2/7 and 12.11 million watching.
As is common, CBS’ primetime was delayed last night – 45 minutes to be precise, so everything is tentative ratingswise on the House of Moonves.
We’ll update with more ratings as we get them.
