NFL Football: the last great audience
200+ cable channels, DVR’s, streaming content, chord-cutting . . . the list goes on and on as the reasons for declining audience levels. The one hold-out is the NFL gridiron, which seems to have been able to resist the trendline and drive large, live audiences.
While the first Clinton-Trump debate of 2016 could bring in large numbers, it’s more likely that many will watch it via streaming audiences, or just watch the live / taped clips streaming across Twitter and Facebook Live. Gone are the days of the nightly News, must-see NBC Thursday nights, and frankly anything other than NFL and College Football games that will bring an audience. The reality is that of the Top 20 broadcast TV events of all-time, all but two are NFL games. The two outliers: the Cheers Finale from 1993 at #20, and the finale of M*A*S*H in 1983 at #8.
With the recent trend line of the Super Bowls hitting the top line numbers each year, we would expect this year to be the Final Call for Cheers on this list — sorry, Sam, but it’s time to turn the sign to Closed.
So in nearly 25 years, only two shows have drawn larger numbers than NFL games, which is why the league is able to command such large dollars for audience-hungry advertisers — advertisers that don’t seem to have figured out how to market and advertise their products and brands outside if the boob-tube. We’re talking to you Ford (F), Chevy (GM) and McDonald’s (MCD).
Part of the enduring appeal of “Sunday Night Football” lies in its unmatched reach in primetime. According to Nielsen live-same-day data, last season’s Sunday night slate averaged a staggering 22.5 million viewers and a 13.0 household rating, which marked a 5% increase from the prior season. Whereas every high-profile scripted series last season suffered significant ratings erosion — TV’s top-rated drama, “The Walking Dead,” saw its C3 numbers drop 15%, while the No. 1 comedy “The Big Bang Theory” fell 14% — “Sunday Night Football’s” growth suggested that the NFL may well be the last remaining TV property that is immune to the ravages of time-shifting/cord-cutting/millennial drift/Netflix-and-chill.
