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Night Fall: Week 1 NFL Audiences Highlighted By Drops For NBC, ESPN Primetime Games

Week 1 of the NFL season saw a viewership drop for primetime games, while Sunday afternoon was a mixed bag. The season began with the Panthers-Broncos NFL Kickoff last Thursday, which drew 25.19 million viewers. That’s the lowest audience for an NFL Kickoff since ’13, when Ravens-Broncos drew 25.13 million viewers. Panthers-Broncos was down 8% from last year’s Steelers-Patriots opener, which drew 27.4 million viewers. NBC also drew 23.08 million viewers for the Patriots-Cardinals matchup on Sunday night, marking the lowest Week 1 “SNF” audience since ’09. Patriots-Cardinals also was down 14% from Giants-Cowboys in Week 1 last year. Meanwhile, ESPN earlier this week saw its lowest opening “MNF” doubleheader audience since ’12, as Steelers-Redskins and Rams-49ers averaged 11.61 million viewers. The 49ers’ shutout of the Rams (10.25 million viewers) marked the lowest late window of the doubleheader since Broncos-Raiders drew 9.67 million viewers in ’08. Despite the drop, the “MNF” doubleheader delivered ESPN a primetime win among all nets. When including streaming numbers from WatchESPN, the "MNF" doubleheader drew 12.0 million viewers. Fox led the weekend with 27.5 million viewers for its Sunday afternoon national window, which featured Giants-Cowboys in 90% of markets. With a different distribution of markets, CBS in Week 1 last year drew 23.29 million viewers for a national window featuring Ravens-Broncos. Fox in ’14 had 49ers-Cowboys featured in the national window, drawing 28.0 million viewers (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor). In Boston, Chad Finn noted Patriots-Cardinals drew a 37.6 local rating in Boston, making it the "second-highest-rated Patriots opener ever," behind only a 39.5 for the Steelers-Patriots NFL Kickoff last year (BOSTON GLOBE, 9/14).

FRESH FACES: USA TODAY's Nina Mandell went behind the scenes with "Monday Night Countdown" this week and wrote ESPN hopes the revamped cast "can be newer, younger, fresher and more fun." ESPN Senior Coordinating Producer Seth Markman wanted "former players who were new enough to the sidelines to still find it weird that they’re not suiting up." It "had been a decade since" former analyst Keyshawn Johnson had played and 14 years for former analyst Cris Carter, while Tom Jackson had not played since the '80s. The show "kept Trent Dilfer and Suzy Kolber," and along with the newly retired Matt Hasselbeck, Charles Woodson "signed on only weeks after retiring." Meanwhile, former NFLer Randy Moss "came over from Fox Sports." Dilfer said that the format of "trying to do the previous version of the show with half of the analysts in Bristol and half at the game site just didn’t work." On Monday’s show, a number of other ESPN personalities, including Chris Berman, Michelle Beisner-Buck and Jon Gruden, "appeared on the program." But it is the five talking heads on set at the stadium who "needed to show chemistry -- despite two being new to full-time television roles." Dilfer said that they had "spent time as a group while shooting promos" and also credits Kolber with "keeping the ship balanced." Markman said that he is "most excited about Moss, who isn’t afraid to call out his former teammates or friends." Markman: "He was really good on Fox Sports and we scouted him there. ... We did take advantage of a situation where you know he deserved a bigger platform, we could give him a bigger platform that they couldn’t" (USA TODAY, 9/14). 

IT'S SHOWTIME: Fox Sports has added former Browns and Patriots front office exec Michael Lombardi to its FS1 studio shows "Skip & Shannon: Undisputed," "The Herd With Colin Cowherd" and "Speak For Yourself." Lombardi will also make appearances on "Fox NFL Kickoff" on Sunday mornings (Fox). 

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On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

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