Saturday Games Score for NFL Weekly TV Watch-Time

Welcome to our weekly snapshot of TV by the numbers, highlighting the most-watched shows and networks for December 11-17, with insights from Inscape, the currency-grade smart TV ACR data provider and data technology division of Vizio. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

Thanks in part to three Saturday games that aired on NFL Network, the NFL increased its share of watch-time week-over-week from 7.60% to 9.25%. Looking at Saturday alone, NFL games accounted for over 16% of all minutes watched during the day, miles ahead of the No. 2 program (men’s college basketball with a 3.49% viewership share). That tune-in to NFL Network also prompted the rise of NFL GameDay Kickoff, the network’s pre-game program, which landed at No. 17 (0.43% of the week’s watch-time). 

Some additional insights about the top programming on TV:

• Other sports programming making week-over-week gains include SportsCenter (No. 4), the NBA (No. 5) and The OT (No. 25).  

• Viewer favorite sitcoms Friends and The Big Bang Theory both saw increases in watch-time compared to the previous week, thanks to reruns on TBS and Nickelodeon for the former, and TBS, The CW and Fox for the latter. 

• The two-night “Live Performances” and “Live Results” episodes of The Voice captured a 0.50% viewership share, moving it up four notches to No. 12. 

• Aside from NFL GameDay Kickoff and The OT, the two other week-over-week ranking newcomers were both Fox News programs: Fox & Friends (up from No. 28 to No. 23) and America’s Newsroom with Bill Hemmer & Dana Perino (up from No. 33 to No. 24). 

See which networks captured the most watch-time last week over on The Measure.