Fox and CBS have long been frustrated by the NFL’s ever-increasing slate for the international regular season, with 9:30 a.m. ET kickoffs in Europe having the potential to deflate viewership of their pregame shows.
Those fears seemed to materialize last Sunday, thanks to a London match that started late and dragged on.
Week 5 on Sunday began with the Jacksonville Jaguars taking on the Philadelphia Eagles at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. The game, which was broadcast on NFL Network, started slowly after two players were ejected on the opening kickoff following a play that required lengthy review. Several penalties and critiques kept it slow, stretching the game to nearly four hours of television time. By the time Jaguars kicker Cam Little kicked a 57-yard field goal to win, it was 1:15 p.m. ET, and the early afternoon games on Fox and CBS were well underway.
Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner wondered if we’d see NFL fan concentration show up in the ratings, and it certainly seems to have had an impact.
The week 5 edition of Fox NFL Kickoff attracted an average of 1.123 million viewers. That’s the lowest number of the season so far, but not by much, as the week 4 show raked in 1.184 million. However, previous weeks averaged over 1.4 million viewers, suggesting that Week 4 was also likely affected by the 9:30 a.m. ET kickoff (Colts-Commanders at London). This international contest concluded around 12:45 p.m. ET, giving viewers time to move on to the noon pregame shows before the 1 p.m. kickoff.
However, the Week 5 decline is much more evident in these midday pregame shows.
Fox NFL Sunday drew 3.797 million viewers last Sunday, a significant drop from the previous four weeks of the NFL season. After starting week 1 with 4.967 million viewers, the show attracted 4.854 million in week 2, 4.541 million in week 3 and 4.436 million in week 4. While the show’s ratings stabilized after the highly anticipated start of the season, a 14% drop is far from normal.
The same significant decline appears in Week 5 ratings for CBS shows. The NFL todaywhich attracted 2.818 million viewers last Sunday. This represents a decrease of 11.5% compared to the previous week (3.183 million). This pregame show started the season with audiences of 3.654 million (week 1), 3.375 million (week 2), and 3.873 million (week 3). The decline over the last two weeks is noticeable.
What can CBS and Fox do about it? Not much, for now. They will have to pull themselves together and hope for a quick turnaround in Week 6 (Texans-Jaguars in London) and Week 7 (Steelers-Saints in Paris). After a reprieve in Week 8, another 9:30 a.m. kickoff awaits in Week 9.
To Fox’s delight, they got the Week 10 kickoff at 9:30 a.m. from Munich (Patriots-Lions). The Week 11 Vikings-49ers game in Mexico is a Sunday Night Football game on NBC, ending the international list of the season.
It’s not bad news for CBS either: the broadcast of the Ravens-Cowboys matchup in Brazil averaged 24.9 million viewers, the most-watched NFL International Series game in history.
So for now, Fox and CBS will have to take the good with the bad and be willing to sacrifice some of their pregame viewership to the NFL programming gods.
Gn sports
