NFL Wild Card Weekend Audience Down Slightly; Fox Has Its Second-Best WC Game

The four NFL Wild Card telecasts last weekend averaged 30.4 million viewers across NBC, CBS and Fox, down slightly from last year’s 31.0 million viewers, which included the most-watched Wild Card game on record (CBS’ coverage of the Broncos' OT win over the Steelers). Fox’ Seahawks-Redskins in the Sunday late window led all telecasts with a 21.5 final rating and 38.1 million viewers, marking the net’s second most-viewed Wild Card game ever, behind only Packers-Eagles in ’11. The audience for Seahawks-Redskins was down from a 24.0 rating and 42.4 million viewers for Broncos-Steelers in the late window last year, but up from Fox’ Giants-Falcons in the early window. The game also marked the most-viewed program on any net since NBC’s primetime Olympic coverage on July 31. Meanwhile, CBS finished with an 18.1 rating and 29.6 million viewers for Ravens-Colts in Sunday’s early window, up from Giants-Falcons last year, but down from the net’s Broncos-Steelers.

WILD CARD SATURDAY: NBC finished with a 15.8 rating and 26.9 million viewers for its Wild Card doubleheader last Saturday, up slightly from a 15.7 rating and 26.6 million viewers last year. Packers-Vikings in primetime earned a 17.3 rating and 30.3 million viewers, down from an 18.2 rating and 31.8 million viewers for Saints-Lions in '12. Earlier in the day, NBC earned a 14.4 rating and 23.6 million viewers for Texans-Bengals, up from a 13.5 rating and 21.9 million viewers for the same matchup last year.