Ratings Roundup: AFC, NFC Championship Games Both Down From 2016

Ratings roundup is a rundown of ratings news from the past week and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week’s edition, we take a look at the numbers for last weekend’s NFL Conference Championship games.

…Fox’s Vikings-Eagles NFC Championship posted a 21.7 rating and 42.3 million viewers on FOX, down 11% in ratings and 12% in viewership from Steelers-Patriots on CBS in the same window last year (24.4, 47.95M) and down 10% and 8%, respectively from Cardinals-Panthers in 2016 (24.1, 45.7M). Compared to last year’s Packers-Falcons NFC Championship, which aired in the early window, ratings fell 13% and viewership 9% from a 25.0 and 46.3 million. (SportsMediaWatch)…

…Sunday’s Jaguars-Patriots AFC title game had a 24.3 rating and 44.1 million viewers on CBS, down 3% in ratings and 5% in viewership from Packers-Falcons on FOX in the same window last year (25.0, 46.3M) and down 17% in both measures from Patriots-Broncos two years ago (29.3, 53.3M). Compared to last year’s Steelers-Patriots AFC Championship, which aired in the late window, ratings dropped a tick and viewership 8% from a 24.4 and 47.95 million. (SportsMediaWatch)…

…Check out SportsMediaWatch for a more in depth look at the AFC and NFC Championship numbers, as well as the Divisional Round games…

…The 18th annual Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada was watched by 1 in 4 Canadians (reaching a total of 9.1 million viewers). Starting with a two-hour pre-game show focused on celebrating the heroes of the game, the 12.5-hour broadcast featured four games which included all seven Canadian teams across three channels (Sportsnet, City, CBC) and averaged 1.23 million Canadians. That is up 7% over 2017 and up 21% over 2016. The first Hockey Night in Canada game between the Toronto Maple Leafs @ Ottawa Senators was the most-watched game of the day with an average minute audience of 1.54 million viewers. It was also the most-watched program in all of Canada on Saturday. Sportsnet was the most-watched specialty network in Canada on Saturday with an audience share of 5.3 for the day….