• by Wayne Friedman , January 16, 2019

Now, almost four months into the 2018-2019 season, sports programming on Fox continues to contribute stronger ratings.

With two recent high-rated NFL playoff games in prime time last week, Fox has lifted itself to a virtual tie with NBC among key 18-49 viewers -- with a season-to-date Nielsen 2.0 rating/8 share.

This comes from live program-plus-seven days of time-shifted viewing (and live-plus-same day time-shifted viewing for the most recent two weeks) data through January 13.

NBC is ahead of all broadcast networks among 18-49 viewers -- but just barely -- with a 2.0/9.

Last year at this time, Fox was averaging a 1.8/7 among 18-49 viewers and 5.83 million overall viewers, while NBC came in at a 2.2/9 and 8.62 million. This year, Fox comes in at 6.9 million total viewers and NBC has 8.34 million.

Fox's two NFC playoffs posted a strong 10.3 live/same-day time-shifted rating (13.3 million total viewers) among 18-49 viewers on Saturday and a 7.3 rating among 18-49 viewers on Sunday (9.4 million) for the week ending January 13.

Earlier this season, Fox witnessed growing seasonal ratings, thanks to its exclusive deal to air “Thursday Night Football” --  the only major broadcast network to see growth over a year ago.

This season, so far, the average performance for all broadcast TV networks has resulted in continued lower program viewership across all demographics -- anywhere from 10% to 12% on average.

Overall, season-to-date, CBS maintains the top spot when it comes to total viewers --at 8.49 million, followed by NBC with 8.34 million; Fox at 6.9 million; CW and Univision, tied with 1.38 million; and Telemundo at 1.18 million.

Far behind in the race for 18-49 viewers are CBS with 1.3/6; ABC, 1.2/5; and CW, Telemundo, and Univision each tied for fifth place at 0.4/2.