NFL cleans up during “premiere week”

Posted by Mike Florio on October 3, 2012, 4:00 PM EDT
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With a new season of TV shows debuting last week, the NFL continues to prove that nothing brings an audience together like the ultimate reality show:  Live professional football.

A pair of NFL games got the highest ratings last week, with Giants-Eagles on NBC attracting 22.8 million viewers and the FOX doubleheader game (mainly Saints-Packers) drawing 22.3 million.

Since the regular season began, only NFL games have drawn audiences of more than 20 million — other than the debut of NCIS.

Also, football was the highest-rated show in 27 of 30 NFL markets last weekend, with only Tampa (whose local team’s game was blacked out) and Pittsburgh and Indianapolis (whose teams were off) not watching NFL football more than any other show.

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12 responses to “NFL cleans up during “premiere week””

  1. If the Eagles are on a bye, I’m sorry, but I’m still watching football. Tampa didnt have a choice, but Pittsburgh and Indy residents should be ashamed of themselves.

  2. Tampa is always off. Nobody wants to waste valuable time watching the Bucs. In person or on TV.

  4. Even the most boring NFL game is better than 99% of what passes for entertainment on regular TV. Aside from a few shows on cable, most of what’s on these days is crap.

    And as far as the numbers – just think of all of those TV’s in bars and restaurants across the country that are turned onto the games but don’t get counted in the ratings. That’s got to bump up the totals even more.

  5. What about redzone viewers? Does that get counted too? I can’t watch anything but redzone nowadays. Not with 7 fantasy teams to keep track of.

  6. The facts don’t lie, Goodell is great as commish regardless of what the meatheads think!

  9. I’m a Pittsburger, and I know firsthand that most Steelers “fans” are fans of being fans. They like to dress up in jerseys, paint their faces, crowd into bars and be passed out from too much drink before halftimes.
    They don’t actually watch football, which explains their insistence that Ben Roethlisberger has somehow won six Super Bowls.
    Very sad.

  10. I’m a Steelers fan, though not in the Pittsburgh market, but my TV (DVR) is tuned to football whenever football is on–Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Thursday. It doesn’t matter who’s playing.

  11. Some people in those cities did watch nfl games. Believe it or not, the average person is not the type that comments on PFT. Of course you’d watch nfl games on your teams bye.

  12. So what?

    Sports gets the highest TV ratings in every country in the world. In most places that means soccer. In fact the most watched TV program in the world is the final of the soccer world cup.

    What would be surprising would be if the NFL didn’t get top ratings here. That’s why the networks pay the big bucks. Despite idiotic commentators and irritating programming they get guaranteed audiences. A license to print money.

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