NFL Network finished with a 1.7 rating and 2.5 million viewers for the Chargers-Raiders game late on Sunday night. The net had averaged a 5.5 rating and 8.6 million viewers for its first three "Thursday Night Football" games of the season. NFL Net had aired 11 non-Thursday night games since '06 leading up to Chargers-Raiders (mostly Saturday, Friday night games), averaging a 3.0 rating and 5.4 million viewers for those games. Despite the low audience, Sunday's Chargers-Raiders was not the net's least-viewed game. The same matchup drew a 1.3 rating and 1.9 million viewers in December '08 (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor). In N.Y., Richard Sandomir writes while NFL Net carried Chargers-Raiders, CBS "produced it, and its announcers, Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts, called the game." NFL Net Senior VP/Programming & Production Mark Quenzel said, "In an ideal world, would I want my guys to do it? Yes. But we had the option of having an experienced team that was willing to help us." Sandomir notes the NFL "compensated CBS," which originally had Chargers-Raiders as part of its 4:25pm Sunday national window. Although Quenzel "would like more games scheduled on NFL Network, he said he was not certain that more games" starting at 11:35pm "would be a good idea." Quenzel: "From a league standpoint, the goal all the time is to have as many of your fans interact with your broadcast [as] possible. I’m guessing that not many people in the Eastern or Midwestern states made it to the second half" (N.Y. TIMES, 10/8).
