RATINGS RAT RACE: NFL ‘Sunday Night Football’ Steady, ‘Simpsons’ Down, ‘Revenge’ & ‘Betrayal’ Rise

There was drama both on and off the field during last night’s NFL Sunday Night Football (5.7/14) Week 9 game. Houston Texans head couch Gary Kubiak had to be taken to a hospital after collapsing during halftime. The team didn’t reveal what was wrong except later to say Kubiak didn’t have a heart attack and was in stable condition. The same could not be said for the Texans who were defeated at home 27-24 by the Indianapolis Colts in a second half rally. Week 9 saw a slight 2% rise from the fast nationals of last week’s Green Bay Packers vs. Minnesota Vikings game. In terms of viewers, Sunday Night Football was far and away the most watched regularly scheduled show of the night with 15.34 million viewers. As always with live events like sports, all non-time zone adjusted fast nationals will likely shift when the finals come in later in the day. Still for NBC, as it stands, it was another easy win among adults 18-49 with a 4.6/12 rating on Sunday night. However, NBC came in second place to CBS among total viewers, as the latter pulled in 14.35 million to the former’s 12.62 million. CBS’ prime was all over the place due to regional NFL overruns that pushed its start time back to 8 PM.

With the Red Sox’s World Series win last week, it was back to the regular Sunday animation block on Fox last night. The network started off with NFL overruns and Bob’s Burgers (1.6/4) repeat and then aired an encore of the classic “Bart The Lover” episode (1.4.4) of The Simpsons from 1992 as a tribute to Marcia Wallace and her performance as teacher Edna Krabappel. Wallace passed away on October 25. Last night’s 8 PM new episode of The Simpsons (2.5/6) opened and closed with a tribute to Wallace. The new Simpsons was down 17% from its last original on October 6. A new Bob’s Burgers (1.8/4) followed at 8:30 PM with a 5% dip from its last new show four weeks ago. Family Guy (2.5/6) was even with its last original back on October 6 while American Dad (1.9/4) was down 10% among the demo from its last new show four weeks ago.

Because of a 59-minute overrun of Pittsburgh Steelers vs. New England Patriots NFL game, CBS’ Sunday primetime was pushed back to an 8 PM start last night. A Mentalist repeat even ended up airing out of prime at 11 PM. Consequently with all that, the fast affiliate results are approximate, inflated and out of their slots. As an example, 60 Minutes (3.2/8) surged up from the 1.3/4 the news mag show got in final nationals. On at 9 PM, The Amazing Race (2.0/5) was up two tenths from last week. The Good Wife (1.6/4) got its biggest audience of the season so far with 9.79 million viewers, second only to Sunday Night Football. Out of it regular time slot, Good Wife matched its season high result among the key demo.

ABC started the night with America’s Funniest Home Videos (1.4/4). The original found footage show was even with its October 27 telecast. One Upon A Time (2.3/6) saw a 5% bop up from last week. Free of the double sports onslaught on rival networks, Revenge (1.7/4) was up 21% among the 18-49s to hit a three-week high. The drama also saw it viewership rise 11% to 6.3 million over last week. At 10 PM, Newbie Betrayal (1.0/3) also had a good night with an 11% rise over its October 27 telecast. Overall ABC saw a 7% rise over last week when it faced both football and the World Series.