Thursday ratings for last night, last week and last year (using Wednesday from the same week last year as the relevant comparison, the night to which the NFL premiere game was relocated by the Democratic National Convention).
The NFL is off to a rousing start. In the fast nationals, the game averaged a 10.0 rating, but that will go up in the official nationals when the Pacific and Mountain time zones are correctly counted for this live telecast. We are estimating the game will hit an 11.7 rating, despite a late start time (kick off did not happen until about 9:10 ET because of severe thunderstorms in the area). After four weeks of relaitvely soft preseason ratings, NFL fans turned out in droves for the real thing, including Peyton Manning leading to Broncos to a huge victory, throwing 7 touchdowns and making 0 interceptions, a feat that has only been done two other times in the history of the NFL. The pregame show at 8:00 scored a 5.6 in the fast nationals, probably falling to a 4.5 in the official nationals (when late game viewing in the west is processed out of that number). For the night, NBC is headed for around a 10.5 rating from 8-11 pm, up 20% from an already very good 8.7 last year.
CBS and ABC are on track to match last year’s nightly ratings (1.5 and 1.1, respectively), while FOX’s slate of repeats (0.6 for the night) tumbled from a 1.5 rating last year (for an original two-hour So You Think You Can Dance).
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