CBS' "The NFL Today" Beats Out Fox For Second Consecutive Week

(l to r) Boomer Esiason, Shannon Sharpe And James Brown Scoring With Viewers

CBS’ Sunday pre-game show, “The NFL Today,” earned a 3.3/9 fast-national Nielsen rating, up 32.0% from a 2.5/7 for Week Two of the NFL season last year.  "The NFL Today" rating was also 26.9% better than the 2.6/7 for “Fox NFL Sunday," marking the second consecutive week CBS beat Fox in pregame.  That happened four times last year, but before then, just once since CBS regained NFL rights in '98. Through two weeks, “The NFL Today” is averaging a 3.4/8, up 13.3% from last year’s average of 3.0/8 and the highest for the show for the first two weeks of the season since ’98 (CBS).

SOX THERAPY: Fox' MLB coverage on Saturday, with Yankees-Red Sox going to 86% of the U.S.,  posted a 2.6/6 final rating (3.9 million viewers), up 23.8% over a 2.1/6 for the comparable week last year, when the majority of the U.S. received the same matchup.  Airing in a similar time slot, Notre Dame-Michigan on ABC drew 3.4 million viewers, and Tennessee-Florida on CBS drew 3.8 million viewers (Fox).

NOTES: The Packers-Giants game last Sunday posted a 34.2 rating (301,986 HHs) on WITI-Fox in Milwaukee, down 9.5% from the 37.8 (332,791) for the Saints-Packers game in Week Two last year (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 9/19)....Last Friday’s USA-Sweden game on ESPN2 at 5:00am ET drew a 0.4 U.S. area rating, the highest so far for the Women’s World Cup, and even with a “SportsCenter” re-air that ran in the same time slot last year (USA TODAY, 9/19).