Divisional Playoff Scores Record 50.4M Viewers For NFL
- by Wayne Friedman , January 23, 2024
Two out of four divisional NFL playoff games notched record-setting ratings results in Nielsen-measured viewers.
The highly touted, fiercely competitive game featuring the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills on CBS posted a massive 50.4 million viewers on Sunday -- the largest NFL audience ever outside the Super Bowl and conference championship.
It was the first divisional game ever to top 50 million -- and 10% higher than the same late Sunday afternoon divisional playoff game of a year ago.
The Saturday afternoon game was another close contest featuring two venerable NFL franchises -- the San Francisco 49ers vs. the Green Bay Packers -- earning 37.5 million viewers, up 31% versus the same game a year ago.
Two other earlier games on both days posted basically flat results. The game featuring the Detroit Lions vs. the Tampa Bay Buccaneers posted 37.12 million viewers on NBC -- down 5% from the same game a year ago. The Baltimore Ravens vs. the Houston Texans on ABC-ESPN reached 32.4 million viewers, up 0.3% versus a year ago.
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Divisional game data does not include NFL playoff viewership on Walt Disney's ESPN+ and NBCU's Peacock.
In terms of advertising, CBS took in $82.3 million for the Kansas City-Buffalo contest in estimated national TV ad spend, according to EDO Ad EnGage.
Fox came in at $60 million for the Green Bay-San Francisco game. NBC's Tampa Bay-Detroit game pulled in $49.7 million, followed by ABC/ESPN's Baltimore-Houston game with $43.7 million.
Total national TV NFL game ad spending for the weekend came in at $235.7 million.
NFL playoffs were going to get over 30+ million viwers no matter the game. I missed the final minutes of the 1ST half because Wood TV's signal went out a hub in Michigan for Lions VS Bucs UGH what a bad time for that to happen. At least from the 3RD quarter on wasn't any problems other than the final seconds of the 3RD but got the feed back up fast. I knew that it was the station problem when I flipped to the new CW West Michigan when it was just a black screen and the map as there was a winter weather advisory on the MI/Indy broarder for Mon adternoon at the time.
I know that a sports blog picked up on the story I saw a story on WXMI Fox17's website I'm sure the other local TV station websites reported on it as well I didn't check it out thou. The NFC Championship Game will be on Fox on Sunday and will be on Fox17. GO Lions, Driven By Detroit, One Pride.